RADIO AS A WORLD FORCE.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17224, 6 October 1927, Page 6

RADIO AS A WORLD FORCE.

An International radio conference has been opened at Washington. The need for international control is self-evident. Mr. 11. C. Hoover, the American Secretary of Commerce, who was elected to the presidency of the conference described the position well when he said the world was most seriously threatened with the chaos of unco-ordinated messages over the ether. He added: "The regulation of traffic upon the channels of the ether is as essential as the regulation of traffic upon our crowded streets. But equally in both cases the purpose must be to expedite movement and stimulate progress, not to rclard it." To lay down this principle is easier than to devise ways and means. Until science has produced some means of directing and confining the messages, the chief means of control is necessarily a checking of the activities of despatching stations. The distinctions io he achieved by variation of wave-length are limited'in the present state of radio knowledge. If all the world were as fully supplied with despatching stations as is the United States the air would be a veritable babel under present conditions. Without international agreement an approach to complete chaos would be probable. Already there have been occasions of international conflict on the field of radio. At a time of international stress in the Far East a warship of one nation, having a far more powerful wireless set than the rest, was able to keep them off the air by simply keeping up a continuous clatter of radio shouting. The chief hope of the future lies in scientific development of radio on the lines of further tuning and directing and also of better control to purify the' sounds received, but for the present, at least, there is urgent need for international agreement regarding right-of-the-road on the ether. The conference has no easy task to bring about complete agreement, but the hope of the world is that nationalistic sell'fishness may be subordinated to the contmon good.