PHOTOS SENT BY WIRE FROM WHAKATANE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 100, 20 February 1950, Page 5

PHOTOS SENT BY WIRE FROM WHAKATANE

Beside the police the investigations into the suspected murder at Onepu drew many interested people to the district, among them press representatives from some of the larger metropolitan newspapers. Reporters and photographers flocked to the scene and one enterprising city paper sent along its own portable photographic unit and despatched photographs over the lines from the Whakatane Post Office. In newspaper work speed is essential and in this case the paper realised that it would be almost impossible to send photographs to Auckland to catch the same day editions, so the portable unit was brought into action. Used Previously

First used at the Empire Games rowing at Lake Karapiro this unit is a marvel of compactness combining ease i,n working. From the Whakatane end of the wires the photographs were sent and received at Auckland and were completed and ready to go to press within half an hour.

The printed photographs are placed face outwards on a revolving cylinder. As the cylinder turns a scanning disc moves along horizontally at the rate of 1/100 of an inch per revolution and breaks the photograph up into tone. Tone •is the name given to sound sent over the wires at a certain frequency. Each photograph is mase up of a number of tiny dots. These can be noticed more easily in newspaper prints. These dots are picked up by the scanning disc and turned into a tone, the impulse of which is sent to the receiver at the other end. From Whakatane the photographs were received at the newspaper office at Auckland on a similar machine. Only there, white photographic printing paper was pinned to a 'similar revolving disc. The impulses were received and turned back into the little dots and placed in a corresponding position on the paper. The paper was taken away for printing and then to block makers.

Three Main Sections The portable machine used at Whakatane was electrically powered and consisted of three main parts. The revolving drum and scanning disc section, the power amplifier and:the sending apparatus. This last section sends the . impulses from the scanning disc out over the wires to the receiver. The machine was used on two occasions last week and reports from Auckland revealed that the photographs were near perfect. A tribute not only to the machines and the operators but also to the equipment and technical staff of the Whakatane Post Office.