New World Discovered by Wonderful Wireless

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17472, 22 January 1931, Page 9

New World Discovered by Wonderful Wireless

THE King’s Speech at the opening of the Hound-Table Conference on India was broadcast to the world, and it was taken for granted hv people, who had almost lost the- ability to wonder, that such a thing should he done. et it is only 33 years since Sit* William I’reeee, after describing at. the Royal Institution bis own method ot “Signalling Through Space without Wires,” by means of electro-magnetic waves of low frequency, “exhibited and explained (ho apparatus by which Hertzian waves of high frequency arc utilised m the new system, invented by 51 r Marconi, a young Italian, who took it to England in duly, 1896, and who assisted at the lecture.” So the curtain was rung up. and the play called "Wireless Progress” began, writes a London correspondent. It moved slowly at first, judged by pre-sent-day standards, and much of it has been forgot ten i; but, later, dramatic situations developed, and they followed in such rapid sequence that the audiences became dazed. Xow it just “switches on the wireless”—and a miracle patiently and efficiently gels to work.

First Press Message. It was the earlier audience which gasped at each new revelation. One can recapture something of that excitement. Let us return to January, 1899, when the first, press message was sent aeross the Channel from Wimereux to fc>outh Foreland. That was a thrill: and a greater was to come in March of that year, when it as established that such messages were not affected by any kind, of weather. Then they found that moving ships could exchange wireless messages; and then, in April, 1899, the first of those calls which arc considered so perfunctorily now as “SOS’’ was put to practical

use. The steamer l l '. F. Matthews ran into and damaged the East 'Goodwin Lightship, and a wireless message from the lightship to South Foreland procured assistance. Messages were exchanged between King Edward and Lord if into, Gover-nor-General of Canada, on December 21, 1902 —an occasion on which the Government of Canada referred to “the greatest [eat which modern science has yet achieved.” The action of the plav was quirkening. Stations were erected. The Wireless Telegraphy Act ■of 1904 gave toe British Government control over wireless Tn time of war or national emergency, and stations on shore or in British ships had to obtain licenses from the Post-master-General. The Russians, in the same year, proved the value of wireless under conditions of war with messages between the Black Sea Fleet and the shore of the Crimea—an anticipation of the British Admiralty’s system in the Great War. The first.” message was sent across the Atlantic, from the Poldhu station fo St. John's. Newfoundland, on December 13, 1901. On Jamiarv 1. 1905. telegrams were accepted hv the General Post. Office for transmission by wireless from land to shins at sea. Five, years later wireless was first used directly in connection with crime. |)r. Crinpen. the murderer, was recognised aboard the liner Montrose, in which he and Miss le Neve were going to Canada, and Captain Kendall, the shin’s commander, communicated by wireless with the manager of the steamshin lines of (he Canadian Pacific Railway Co., by whom the message was sent from Liverpool to Scotland Yard. Chief Inspector Drew immediately took* passage in the Lanrentie. overtook tlm Montrose, and was waiting to. arrest Criunen when the Montrose arrived off Father Point, Quebec. Aid to Flying Squad Wireless now plays a great part in the detection of crime. Flying Squad cars and vans are equipped with it, and a criminal’s finger prints can be transmitted perfectly for identification purposes. Airplanes are guided through fog by wireless messages; target ships are controlled by wireless; surgical operations at sea have been performed by lavmen acting on instructions wirelessed by doctors in distant ships, and a funeral service at sea was repeated word by word by the wireless operator of the Patterns as the captain was buried—there was no Prayer Book in the Hatterns, and the ritual was dictated from the President Adams, 240 [piles away. London and New York came into regular wireless telephonic communication on January 7, 1927. The service between London and Australia was instituted on April 30 last year. And it lias all happened in 33 years.