TALK THROUGH CLIFFS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 8, 20 December 1911, Page 7

TALK THROUGH CLIFFS.

ANOTHER SYSTEM OF WIRELESS TELEPHONY. In the “Daily Chronicle” of 11th September an account was given of the experiments in wireless telephony which Mr H. Grindell Matthews, a member of the Royal Institute, has been conducting in the neighbourhood of Chepstow. The claim advanced by Mr Matthews was that by means of an instrument which he had invented, and which he called the “aerophone,” he was able to convey his voice over long distances, and even through obstacles of brick, rock, and steel without the aid of wires. It was reported that Mr Matthews was engaged in long-distance tests and that he had succeeded in speaking over a distance of live and a half miles, and that he contemplated experiments between Chepstow and Cardiff, a distance of twenty-five miles. Monwhile the news comes from Ramsgate of another series of remarkable. and, it is stated, highlysuccessful experiments, in what is described as “marine wireless telephony,” that have been conducted by a young electrical inventor, Mr A. W. Sharman. The experiments were conducted at Pegwell Bay, near Ramsgate, during the last week of September. The most remarkable of the claims put forward for Mr Sliarman’s invention is that messages have been sent through great stretches of chalk cliff, and the system has also worked well through brick walls and iron safes. The whole wireless telephone station may, it is stated, be carried in a small hand-bag. and only a few dry cells are required to supply the current.

Mr Sharman also claims that it will ho possible, for instance, for vessels to drop electrical trailers and speak to each other when miles apart. Thunderstorms have no effect upon the instrument. ; This fact was demonstrated during the . week, when messages were despatched and received quite accurately whilst thunder and lightning were in progress. Most of the experiments have so far been conducted from a land station to a motor boat out in Pegwell Bay. and Mr Sharman states that gradually he is perfecting his system, which he has found to work perfectly. The apparatus was found capable of sending messages various distances up to tliyee milts.

Ordinary conversation can be carried on quite easily at a mile, and marine experiments have so far proved satisfactory.

The apparatus is both cheap and portable, and possesses the further great advantage of being brought into actual use without difficulty.