BEAM TESTS HEARD IN AUCKLAND.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18057, 18 January 1927, Page 1

BEAM TESTS HEARD IN AUCKLAND.

MORSE CAME THROUGH AT GOOD STRENGTH. (Special to the "Star.”) AUCKLAND, January 18. During the last week the of Australia have been much interested in the. latest means of annihilating distance between the Southern Continent and the Old Country and have followed keenly the testing stage of the “ beam wireless ” system of communication between the two lands. They have not been alone in doing so for amateur radio transmitters here who are equipped with suitable short wave apparatus have also been on the qui vive to pick up tests. Two at least have been successful in doing so. Mr H. B. Arthur, of Herne Bay, reports that on Friday night, listening in just below the thirty meter length, he heard both English and Australian ends working and Morse signals came through at good readable strength, when they were being sent slowly by hand. Following this came transmission at a speed of about 100 words per minute, sent of course mechanically, and at a rate far too great to be received other than by the same means. Later Mr Arthur gleaned that 200 words per minute transmission was to be undertaken on the following night. Late on Saturday night, Mr L. R. Dickson, son of Mr J. S. Dickson, M.P., picked up tests at a strength that made them audible with two stages of audio amplification through the loud speaker. When slow Morse was being sent both English and Australian ends were heard distinctly, so New Zealand must be well in the line of the beam of transmission. This does not mean, however, that amateurs with low wave receiving sets will be able to pick up and read the communications between England and Australia. When commercial operation is in progress then the rate of sending say 200 words per minute will be so fast that to the reader depending on his earphones the signals will sound just a jumbled blur. Only to the delicate mechanical devices capable of recording the dots and dashes

so rapidly sent out by the same means will the communications be decipherable.