RADIO TELEPHONY

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20086, 15 November 1930, Page 14

RADIO TELEPHONY

WELLINGTON—LONDON. INAUGURATION NEXT WEEK. •[THE FBEBS Sptetel S«r*lee.l WELLINGTON", November 14. If tests upon the Tasman radio telephone prove satisfactory, it is anticipated that the Acting-Prime Miniser, the Hon. E. A. Ransom, will speak from Wellington to the Prime Minister, the St. Hon. G. W. Fotbes, in London, early next week. This will be the first official conversation between England and New Zealand, and it will mark an important step in, the advance of interImperial communication. The radio .telephone service between London and Sydney has been in operation for some time, and experiments upon the service between Wellington and Sydney, .have been in progress, for several weeks. This section is the one causing the difficulty, but it is anticipated that the service will be ready for commercial operation in the near future. The Director of the Commonwealth Postal Department, Mr H. P. Brown, recently had several successful experimental talks with Mr G. McNamara, Secretary of the New Zealand Post and Telegraph Department, It was hoped that the service would have been opened by now, but the tests have been prolonged in view of various difficulties that have been encountered. There was a proposal that the Minister for Internal Affairs, the Hon. P. A. do la Perrelle, should speak to the Lord Mayor of Sydney when tho New Zealand offices were opened there last Monday, but this proved impossible, so that the conversation between Mr Bansom and Mr Forbes will be tho first to take place,. apart from those conducted by the Commonwealth and Dominion Departments. Numerous complications have to bo overcome by the Post and Telegraph Department, in conducting a successful service between London. and New Zealand. The service between Sydney and London is working four hours a day only, owing to fading trouble. Once tho tests have been completed, it is not expected there will be much -difficulty in maintaining a service between Sydney and 'Wellington. It is possible there will be a little trouble foi* a start between Wellington and London, as to begin with, there is a variation in time of 12 hourß. »