IN THE ANTARCTIC.

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17621, 28 January 1929, Page 7

IN THE ANTARCTIC.

BYRD EXPEDITION. WIRELESS COMMUNICATION. WORLD RECORD ESTABLISHED. [By Mr. Russell Owen, Copyrighted 102 S by the New York Times Company, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. All rlg-tita for publication reserved , thro “fL out v ;!!£ world. Wireless to the New ioru Times. 1 (By Telegraph—Dress A ® sn drT7^’ (Australian Press Association.) NEW YORK, Jan. 26. A world’s record in wireless communication from a plane was ' lished early this morning, when Commander Bryd’s plane, flying at an tude of 3000 ft, conducted a «o-'W communication direct with uio - York Times radio station. 9he distance between the plane and the - ccivcr was 10,000 miles, It was the first time that a plane in flight had sent and received messages for such a long distance. , .. „ It was 10.30 p.m., New York time, when the operator, Carl Peterson, on board the City of New York, the base ship of the expedition, called the Times operator on a 34-metre wave length, and said Mr Malcolm Hanson, cruel wireless officer with the expedition, would make a test flight in the plane at 8.15 p.m. in the Bay of YVhales. “ Listen and try to hear the plane, said the message from the Far South. Message Received. While the ether in the north temperate zone was fairly quiet, in the early morning in New York, with most of tlie broadcasters fast asleep, Mr Reginald Iverson, the wireless engineer at the Times station, tuned his dial to 34 metres and found that tlie operator nearest the South Pole had kept his rendezvous. “ The plane is now leaving the ice,’ was the warning to New York to tune carefully, because a hair’s breadth turn of the dial might mean missing tlie plane. But Iverson soon picked the signal on the 240 cycle note, “ the airplane is flying over the Antarctic.” “ Co ahead,” Iverson flashed back. The plane heard tlie dots and dashes from the Times transmitter at New York, Jinked by an invisible channel to tlie Bay of Whales. Then followed an official message to Commander Hooper, of the Navy Department, Washington, “it is a line and sunny night here,” said Hanson, in concluding. The transmission was ended at 3.28 a.m. New York time. Just 12 minutes after the message came that the plane was ready to go aloft, Iverson broadcast -tlie acknowledgment. No repeat signals were necessary. Innovation In Wireless. A few minutes later Hanson notified that he would shift to 65 metres, hut no communication followed. Evidently he was unsuccessful. He shifted back to 34 metres. A few minutes later tlie Mussel Rock Station of the Dollar Company, near San Francisco, exchanged several messages with Hanson at the rate of 25 words a minute without difficulty. Hanson’s plane is equipped with an antenna, reaching from the tips of botli wings to tlie tail and into tlie fuselage. This is for short-wave transmission, while a trailing wire is utilised for • communication on the universal commercial wave of 600 metres. The installation derives its power from an electrical generator coupled direct to the airplane engine. This is an innovation in airplane wireless. The plane's receiver, which picked up the signals from the Times station, is a special 4-tube super-regenerative circuit for short-wave reception, designed by Malcolm Hanson and built by a Washington firm. So strong were the signals from the plane and so slight the fading that the Times operators are hopeful that they will pick up the plane’s despatches when it flies over the South Pole, providing the flight is made between midnight and 4 a.m., New York time, and if the proper wave is used to conquer the obstacles that lurk in the radio channels that extend for 10,000 miles between the South Pole and New York.