WIRELESS MARVELS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 62, 6 December 1907, Page 3

WIRELESS MARVELS.

J . WEIRD APPARATUS. Tho "Daily Mail" special correspondent says:— By special permit, I was able to visit tho Marconi wireless signal station hero and seo tho actual conditions under which tho wireloss commercial servico will bo opened to tho world. This is the first time a member of tho general public has been admitted to the station. Under the guidance of Mr. Entwistle, the engineer in charge of tho station, 1 was enabled also to inspect the entire signalling apparatus, from dynamo to triatics. No attempt has been mado for several days to hold further communications with the Transatlantic stations, as Mr. Marconi considers tho service here satisfactory, and is only waiting to complete tho adjustment of the apparatus at the Capo Breton station before sending tho first commercial message to England on Saturday. The three operators have not yet arrived at tho signal station, and the instruments havo not yet been placed in the operating room, but I' was able to witness a rehearsal of the actual transmission of Transatlantic messages without wires. ' , The signal station, 300 acres in extent, and occupying, roughly, a stretch of bog a mile long and half a mile wide, lies about three miles out of the little village of Clifden, one of the westernmost points of Ireland. The station corresponds to the cable companies' Valontia station on the same coast, and is the largest Marconi station on this side of the Atlantic. It is only when the visitor has approached the engine-shed of the ' station that he catches sight of what appear- to be the spars and tackle of a fleet of invisible schooners, lying somewhero just over the hill. These are the famous eight triple masts and aerial wires which furnish one of the principal keys to the mysterious wireless service. STRANGE SHEETS OF STEEL. The signal station buildings proper are only three in number —the power house, composed of boiler-room and engine-room; the bungalow, where Mr. Entwistle and his four assistants live; and the condenser house. The power house is a distinct disappointment. Here, three common boilers, fed by native peat, are connected with a' standard engine, which drives the, dynamo, which, in turn, generates electricity of a high power. By means of underground cables this current is fed into tho condenser house a few hundred .feet away. This is the buildinir which seems destined to form the British base for the establishment of tho Transatlantic service without wires. It is 350 ft. long, 75ft. wide, and 45ft. high.' The building is at present an unpretentious affair of corrugated iron with a steel frame. Once inside, however, the hopes raised by the sight of the masts, and dashed by an inspection of the power house, begin to rovivo. An entire room is given up to strango sheets of steel, which "are. hung from roof to floor, like washing on a line, until only narrow alloys are left. Queer brown earthenware, jars, like old-fashioned receptacles, and all manner of outlandish electrical apparatus now confront the visitor. Tho plates are for acting as a reservoir to store. > electrical energy. The jars are transformdrs. to magnify electrical currents received as tho result qfHhe ether vibrating. Readers of tho "Daily Mail" are already familiar with the principle of tho Marconi system. Briefly, the breaking of a powerful electric current, sets up ether Vibrations, which travel with lightning-like velocity, and, in turn, cause electrical disturbances, which are detected and reconnected by a receiving instrument which is so tuned as to take in only the electrical disturbance caused by vibrations of a certain length. MYSTERIOUS INSTRUMENTS. • ' The actual instruments used by wireless operators in transmitting and receiving messages dispel another ■ popular misconception. "The engineer gave a few directions to his assistant, who, seated before an ordinary Morse telegraph instrument, in the oporating. room,- placed a telephone headpiece to his ears and began to fumble with the key, hastily bidding mo stuff cotton-wool in my ears and don a pair .of blue glass spectacles. Tho engineor beckoned me to the connection room on the floor above, which is equipped with a medley of strango electrical contrivances. Tho use of tho cotton-wool r/id smoked glasses became at. once startlingly apparent. From the '"interrupter" instrument, corresponding exactly in duration to tho assistant's touch of tho key below, came threo blinding flashes of bluewhito flame, followed by a short flash, and then threo moro short flashes. The two side-mouths of the instrument likewise spout oye-blinding' flame of tho same colour and intensity, u The assistant on the Morse' instrument below had so adjusted the • steel lever on the "interrupter's" ebonite rod as to complete the electrical circuit. ■' No wonder the tearing flash for the current is many thousands of. volts. Simultaneously, the discharger, a few feet across the room, emitted similar blinding flames, and there.came a wearing, tearing boom like, tho deep bass of some gigantic organ, but immeasurably cruder and louder. The duration of each note again corresponded.exactly with the assistant's dot or dash on the instrument below. This was the electrical current from the building into tho aerial wires outside. These, fifty-two in number, arc strung i from the cable which connects 'the tips of each pair of masts, thread-like to the eye even at close quarters, and invisible at short distance. ' These at once begin, to set up vibrations of the ether, which in loops and waves travel with inconceivablo rapidity across tho sea.