WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13656, 27 July 1908, Page 7

WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY.

MESSAGES BOTH WAYS AT ONCE.

That wireless telegraphy has not yet exhausted its store of wonders and surprises was proved to a " Daily Chronicle" representative hi an interesting talk with Mr Marconi at his London offace recently.

One approaches this man, who, ; white vet 'in Jus youth,, revolutionised telegraphy, in the expectation- of mieting a typical and rather uncanny wizard, who lias' but to wave his Lands to work all manner of wonders by an unseen force. But,there is nothing uncanny, and nothing to suggest stuay and midnight oil, about the tall, athletic, well-groomed young-man, who greets you in a breezy lashion, and in such perfect .English that his Italian name is forgotten, an 1 you remember only that his mother wus Irish.

"O j r es," he said, "I'll tell, you what I'm trying' to do, and what a.-j my hopes, but please don't make me sc.m and don't let us have too much of the I—l—l.

"Most people know all about the Tegular service which the Marconi Wireltias Telegraph Company is now maintaining across the Atlantic. It began in October last with the exchange of messages between King Edward and Earl, Grey, Governor-General of Canada, and we are now sending about' 2,000 words, across daily. The public can send messages at per word . for transmission between London and Montreal, inclusive of land rates. Messages inust be handed in at the London offices of the company, Watergate House, York-buildings, Adelphi, or at 1,724, Notre Dame-street, Montreal. "We can send twenty-four words a minute across the Atlantic, or forty : eight when we can use the duplex system. But at present we can only send messages one way at a time. If an operator tried. 1o send a mesage. across while he was receiving ond tihere would be a great confusion, one man firing against another "—and Mr Marconi wavtd his hand to suggest a grand collision of language in mid-Atlantic. "But lately I have been t-\i< rimenting with apparatus which will enable us:to send a message in both directions at once. The experiments have baen quite successful over a distance of three or. four iniks at Toole, in Dorsetshire, and I anticipate I equal succetis before long across the Atlantic

"Th-tt is one of my latest experiments. Another is to enable-a ship approaching the shore, or another ship in a fog, to determine exactly the position of the wireless station on shore, or the course i of the other ship. You. can see, of. course, how it will help a navigator if he 'is ab'e to know, not only that another ship t is approaching, but the exact angle the course of that ship makes with his own. TO MOST DISTANT PARTS. "If. is perhaps, a; little-difficult to explain the idea to the general reader, but

here- it. is roughly "—and Mr Marcom sketched rapidly on his blotting-pad wlme he spoke. '* We get, you see, a screen with a small hole in the centre. This is turned about in the direction from which the othersshi t or the shore station, is k'iintWi to tie telegraphing, -Until the ringing of a. bell, caused by the waves entering the hole in the screen, shows that, the exact direction from which the wave is coming has been ascertained. " I shall be carrying out experiments on these lilies in the Mersey in a few- weeks. The idea is being specially welcomed by shipping authorities on the Kt. Lawrence Miver, where fog so ofleii hinders navigatibh. "At present the' Transatlantic service, from Clifden, Ireland, to Grace Bay, Nova Scotia, a distance of 2,200 miks, is our longest regular system, bub I see no reason why the most distant parte should not be thus connected, and to a country like Greati Britain, with her far-off Colonies, the possibilities are enormous. "In undeveloped lands, too, like Africa, its future seems assured. One. of its great advantages are that there are no Wires to cut. The cutting of telegraph wires by savage or half-civilised tribes, out of ignorance or mischief, has always been a difficulty. " In China, too, where we have five stations, this same point holds good, especially in view of the fact that superstitious dread of shadows falling on ancestral graves has often led to tho removal of 'wires and poles. Think, too, of the anxiety that wo should have been spared if the besieged Legations in Peking, a few yearn ago, could have communicated with the allied European fleets by a -system which no wire-cutting could hinder. > . "At the present tune a Bill is before the Italian Parliament for the purchase by the Government of the Marconi station at Bari, near Brindisi, which communicates with Montenegro, acroas the Adriatic. In his speech, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs said that this station had, in its three years' working, iliven proof of its efficiency and reliability, and he proposed its purchase with every confidence.. This, testimony to our system is, of course, very gratifying." Then with a sigh over the fact that business ' cares, had,: for some time kept him from his beloved experiments, to which he will shortly return, Mr Marconi brought the interview- to a close. —■■— maam —a—«