ROMANTIC STORY EXPLODED

Taranaki Daily News, 9 April 1927, Page 8

ROMANTIC STORY EXPLODED

TELEVISION TOOK TWO MONTHS London, February 7. The presence of Senatore Marconi at a luncheon given in his honour by the Foreign Press Association, evoked two interesting points; one was his hopes for television and the other was the squashing of a sentimental story long attached .to his name. \ The chairman, the veteran Dutch correspondent, Mr. Van der Veer, asked the Senatore to explain “how in the world he had ever come to conceive the idea.” He replied in a sentence that it came to him because he wanted at the time to communicate with someone without having to- be dependent on the weather or on signals. When he was' reminded later that a similar statement made last year in Rome had started a whole pretty romance, he would not hear of it. “Don’t for goodness sake talk of a love story,” he said. “1 had been signalling to a friend by means of a mirror. The sun does not always shine even in Italy, and when it failed I asked myself whether there could ever be another way out. I found it— an that is the whole story.” “And how long was it, Senatore,” he was asked, “for the day you put the .question to the day you supplied the answer?” ■ “1 think it was about two months,” he replied. Not a love story, may be, but surely a romance. After speaking of successful wireless telephony, “I am sure,” he said,' “that before long television will be a practical success.” “One of my assistants,” he added, “has succeeded in exchanging with ease clear telephonic communication with persons in Canada, at the same time that the same stations were transmitting and receiving high-speed telegraphic messages, without experiencing any mutual interference or disturbance due to the simultaneous operation of telegraphic and, telephonic communications.

“This, in my opinion, means that it will soon be possible to establish telephonic as well as telegraphic services not only with Canada, but also with Australia, India, South Africa, and other distant countries served by the beam stations,”