PLAYING WITH WIRELESS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17035, 8 May 1923, Page 6

PLAYING WITH WIRELESS.

A wireless message, handed in at the Christchurch Telegraph Office yesterday for a passenger on the s.s. Maunganui was refused becau'se there was no wire by which to transmit it to Wellington. If, however, a. wireless, message had been handed in at Bluff, the inhospitable little town of less than 2000 inhabitants at the southern end of the island, it would have been accepted without demur. The reason for this extraordinary state of things can he found in the fact that the New Zealand Government is simply playing with wireless insofar as it has become dependent on ihe maintenance of land lines and submarine cables for its transmission. There are four New Zealand stations—at Auckland, Wellington, Bluff and Chatham Islands. They seem to have been selected with some hazy idea of strategical utility in case of war, but their commercial possibilities, obviously, have been overlooked. We can think of nothing more Gilbertian in telegraphic records, indeed, than this instance of the refusal of a wireless message at the .second largest city in New Zealand because “ the wires were not working.” The Telegraphic Department by attractive posters; in every Post and Telegraph office in New Zealand fries' to induce the public to make use of wireless, and ihe newspapers co-operate daily to the extent of publishing the Government list of vessels within wireless range of New Zealand; yet two of the principal cities in the Dominion have no Government radio stations. This is a reproach that ought to be removed at once, and Dunedin and Christchurch ought to co-operate in the matter. The absurdity of the situation is emphasised by the fact that in Christchurch there are some hundreds of amateur receiving stations that get contact daily with France, America and other countries. The establishing of a wireless station is not such a formidable undertaking that it ought to he delayed any longer. Constant breakdowns in the ordinary means of telegraphic transmission between the two islands have emphasised the need for a wireless station in Christchurch, and the Maunganui incident leaves the authorities no defence for their past neglect.-