ROBBING THE AIR

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 56, Issue 4049, 18 May 1938, Page 4

ROBBING THE AIR

Market gardeners at Hamburg (Germany), living alongside a broadcasting station, have been fined for lighting their homes by tapping the electric waves thrown out into the air (or, rather, ether) around them. Some doubt was cast on this queer news item (400 gardeners were said to be stealing electric power) by Sydney electrical experts during the week; but it is feasible enough. It is commonplace in America,

The householders who live around the base of station WL!W at Mason, Ohio, for instance, not only light their homes free, but run all their toasters and other electrical gadgets from the air. WLW is the most powerful broadcasting station in the U.S.A. In the street beside it anyone can use an unconnected electric lamp as a lantern as he walks about. One wire is held in the hand, the other pointed toward the metal gate of the station.

The Hamburg case is the first time this kind of robbery has been objected to. What is worrying scientists far more is the possible effect on human beings in the vicinity if still higher power (WLjW is 500,000 watts) is added to broadcasting, especially when television becomes common, using broad bands of short waves.

Unlike the longer waves, the humain body is “in tune” with these and no one can forecast what constant drenching of the body with three to eight metre waves will be.