PACIFIC NERVE-CENTRE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17028, 13 August 1929, Page 11

PACIFIC NERVE-CENTRE

SUVA RADIO STATION MUCH TRAFFIC HANDLED GOVERNOR'S RUSK DURING WAR. SUVA, July 50. "To tho Admiral of H.M.A.S. Australia. Will you dine vvitli me this t \ ening ''■-(lovernor hI 1< iji. This brief message was t irked out in Morse code in the days when the German waiships Scharnhorsl and Gueisemiii were "somewhere in the South Pacta." with warlike intent, it tame hum the Suva wireless station, then solely cunt rolled by the Fiji Government. "From information received" it was feared that the ships wen; making for Fiji—a completely undefended and helpless Fiji, discounting a handful of men with rifles and machine guns. So the Governor hit on the novel idea of inviting the admiral of tho Australia to dinner, in a message which gave the impression thai the ship was already in the group, when at the time it was over 2500 miles away. The message was sent, out three or four times and was not coded. The Germans never came. To-day Suva Radio, controlled by Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia), Ltd., is the most important British station in the South Pacific. So long as its mast stood it would, in the event of a Pacific war, be one of the busiest centres But the mast stands at the station right cm the coastline, and is visible for many miles out to sea. The station, too, is situated on a spot which is very easily picked out on a map or chart." It has a completely -up-to-date plant, and will consequently be well known to all naval commands. A PLAGUE OF INSECTS. But to-day there is no Pacific war. Instead, a "local" war is being waged continually in the station, and it would not be surprising if the manage-. Mr. K. C. Farquhar, many a time wished himself back on one of" the ships of the King's Navee on which he spent 12 years, serving as a. boy on the. cruiser on which the present King, then Duke of Connaught, was captain. On board ship there are no sandflies, no mosquitoes and no hornets. There is little need for an automatic alarm at, the Suva radio station. Sandflies and mosquitoes work overtime during the night and during the day. Mr. Farqubar's sccond-io-com-mand, Mr. A. 0. Barrack, is kept busy preventing tho hornets building in the receivers. Tho site is not an ideal one bv any means, but in spite of diligent research work on the part of the entire staff it has not yet been discovered that any one of the three pests, or all three combined, have any deteriorating effect on wireless waves'! Until such a discovery is made the station is likely to remain where it is. CABLES USED WITH WIRELESS. Suva is centrally situated geographically and in addition it has the advantage of being the onlv town connectedly cable with Australia and America. At present the cable is used in eonjunction with wireless. Messages_ are received from all the, outlying stations, telegraphed by land line from tho station to Suva' Post Office, and carried by Fijian messenger from the Post Offieo to the Pacific Cable Board's oiiiecs, whence they are dispatched by cable. Tn the same way a "wireless" message dispatched from Sydney to any of the island stations comes first by cable to Suva—a- very modern dog this Pacific service, with an exceedingly old-fash ioued tail, and all because for some unknown reason the Australian Government has not been pleased to grant a license to the company to conduct a direct service with Suva. STATIONS ALL AROUND.

Suva Radio well deserves the name "toe nerve centre of the South Seas," as it lies in the centre of a nest of subsidiary stations. Nukualofa, Tonga, is the nearest, 450 miles away, approximately ; Apia, Western Samoa, 500 miles; Tutuila, American Samoa, independent of tho British service, about 500 miles; Wallis Island, a French station, 600 miles; Port Vila, New Hebrides and Noumea, two more French stations, 600 miles away; Tulagai, in the Solomons, 1000 miles'; Ocean Island. 1000 miles; Papeete, French. 1000; British Rarotonga, 1000, and American Honolulu, over 2000 miles. Within the Fiji group itself, and directly controlled by tho Suva manager, are three small local stations — Labasa, Taviuni and Sa-vu Savn. and there is urgent need for the immediate establishment of a fourth at Lautoka. These three stations and all the other BritjsJi Stations mentioned work entirely through Suva and send and receive according to schedule. WARNING SKINT TO SHIPPING. F.verv ship is continually in touch with Suva Radio, and djjring the hurricane season the air buzzes with messages inwards telling of conditions in every area of the South Seas. These messages go to the Suva, harbormaster and meteorologist, Captain Twenty man, who plots out Ids information on paper and every hour or two Suva Radio dispatches his deductions broadcast to all shipping and they are always very reliable. On several occasions speeches have been broadcast from Suva Radio and Mr. Funuliar has* had letters from all over the world telling him that they have been picked Uj). The station is fullv equipped for duplex telephony and recent experiments have been completely successful. Conversations have been kept up with officers of Amalgamated Wireless, Ltd., sitting in their offices in York street, Sydney, with less difficulty than if they bad boon sitting in Suva. Tha value of this ocean station in emergency has fortunately never been tested. Its automatic alarm, installed now for many years, has never once been heard in action except under test, but it is there. During the wonderful ocean flight from Honolulu to Suva of the Southern Cross Suva Radio was in conslant touch with her. and every message sent out was logged. Had anything happened a- ship would have been out on the search within five minutes of the first report of the trouble.