Another Australian Inventor Claims to Break all Records.

Progress, Volume III, Issue 11, 1 September 1908, Page 385

Another Australian Inventor Claims to Break all Records.

The month opened with a startling piece of news from Australia. It chronicled the invention of a new system of wireless telegraphy by a Victorian, Mr. Sutton, of Malvern, Melbourne. If is said to be likely to supersede everything either afloat or ashore. This is said in preliminary of every invention. For this one the usual and special claim, however, is unusually full of reasons: — A new medium of transmission, greater speed, more efficiency, less expense, and the power of intercepting everything that goes wireless through the air. The inventor affirms that he has discovered a new form of atmospheric wave, entirely different from the Hertzian or the Poulsen, and that by it he has obtained absolute accuracy in transmitting messages. Every portion of

the wave is utilised in his system, which is worked with a low power, while the apparatus is said to be small and portable. Only one-sixth of the electrical power needed in the Marconi system to produce vibrations. With a spark only one-eighth of an inch long, obtained from an ordinary motor cycle coil, he transmits a clear, sharp signal a distance of 300 ft., sending complete Morse messages as fast as skilled operators can read them through a telephone receiver. At the inventor's laboratory at Malvern, his new system is installed, and whenever a vessel of the Royal Navy or German mail steamer, or any

other with wireless installation, sends messages, the bells in his office are set ringing violently, and through the telephone receiver can be heard the ticking of a message sent by somebody somewhere. It is claimed that there is no wireless message which cannot be caught up and recorded by this installation, though of course, if it be in cypher, it cannot be solved without the key. The vessels of the Royal Navy communicate between Sydney and Melbourne and Sydney and Adelaide; but all their messages are intercepted by this suburban installation. Many a message intended to be private, it is said, finds its way to this suburban office, although both the experts of the Navy and the engineers of the German mail steamers believe that their messages cannot be tapped. It is claimed also that no system, however it may be tuned or guarded, is safe against the new "wirelass," since from its instrument messages can be poured into the receivers of the enemy's installations, so that the messages are simply a confused medley of signals. It is said to possess other methods even more effective and drastic of silencing competitors, but these are being kept secret. Mr Sutton, who was one of the earliest experimenters with "wireless," is a friend of Tesla, and had the advantage of expositions and demonstrations from that scientist in London long before Mr. Marconi's name was connected with wireless telegraphy as a commercial undertaking. He is the discoverer of the system of telegraphic photography, and it was while proceeding to develop this invention that he came across the principles of his new system of "wireless." A man not in need of money, he has made electrical research his hobb3^. The invention has been brought to the Commonwealth Government unpatented, and generously presented to them by Mr. Sutton.