EMPIRE WIRELESS CHAIN.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 October 1921, Page 10

EMPIRE WIRELESS CHAIN.

CAIRO STATION IN HAND.

COMPLETION IN DECEMBER.

London, Sept. 26. A satisfactory result has attended a prolonged, and searching test carried out at the Leafield wireless station, which was opened on August IS. Regular work on the construction of a station at Cairo is commencing on October and will be completed in December. Experts will complete plans of other stations in November, and when approved orders for eight or ten more stations will be placed without delay.

With the completion of the transmitting station at Leafield, in August, the first link in the chain of Imperial wireless communications was established. Two messages were sent out, the first to all British stations in range, and the second to all European and other foreign stations in range, in which the Postmaster-General expressed the hope that the development of wireless communication would help to knit still closer the bonds of amity which bind the British Empire to all other States. Within the space of a few minutes messages of felicitation and congratulation were received from Malta, France, Rome, Buda Pest, Posen, Norway, Sweden, and Germany, and in almost every case a clear signal and good note was acknowledged. Thus, without any undue show or ostentation, the first high-power station owned by the British Post Office was inaugurated. The links to follow, as recommended by the Imperial Wireless Telegraphy Committee last year, and confirmed at‘ the recent Imperial Conference. subject to a reservation by Australia, will be at Cairo, East Africa, South Africa, India, Singapore, and Australia, with a branch from Singapore to Hongkong, and a link between England and Canada. The conception of the idea of erecting a station at Lea field dates hack to 1913, when a contract, subsequently cancelled, was entered into between the post office and the Marconi Company. Before the cancellation the site had been obtained, and the 300 ft. tubular steel masts treated. A site for a similar station at Cairo, which was to be the second link in the chain, had been obtained, *and the. masts erected. In the spring-wf 1919 the question of utilising these sites and masts was considered by the then recently instituted imperial Communications Committee, and in view of the heavy pressure on the cables between England and Egypt, it was eventually decided to complete the stations, and Parliament sanctioned the estimated expenditure of £-170,000 in August, 1919. The scheme has been delayed by the numerous difficulties in (lie industrial world, with the result that the Leafield station is only now ready for opening, while the Cairo station will not be ready until December.

When the Cairo station is completed it will not only carry on a service with England, but will be used for communication with Mesopotamia, and perhaps with India; it will also, pending the completion of the remaining stations of the system, exchange traffic with the Eastern Telegraph Company’s cables beyond Egypt.

Later, another pair of stations will be erected in England and Egypt, toadmit of a duplex service, that is, the simultaneous transmission and reception of messages. Both the Leafield station and the corresponding station in Egypt can easily be adapted for long-distance telephone communication as soon as such communication becomes a practical proposition.