AWANUI WIRELESS STATION.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1494, 17 July 1912, Page 4

AWANUI WIRELESS STATION.

TO BE THE SAME AS PENNANT i., ■■:■■. HILLS. ' i A'selection of interesting photographs' >of tli'e.:.receirtly-coinpletedi wireless station at Pennant Hills (near, Sydney) has ))ecn received .by the Secretary of the." Post and Telegraph Department (Mi\ D. liobertson). The particular interest this station has for New Zealand is that both the Awanui (north of Auckland) and Bluff stations are to be its facsimiles, and that when till three are in working order a largo section of the South Pacific Ocean will be under iwireless control. It will then be an easy -matter to exchange, confidences with Australia even in the day time,'without'--recourse to a submarine cabe. A general view of the Pennant Hills-station discloses little save one immense mast of latticed steel and the. usual, station- buildings. This'mast is 400 feet in hught,-and weighs between 50 and CO tons, and a closer view shows that it is like the stick of an umbrella, for radiating fronl the top arc a number cl wires, which slope downwards and outwards to a surrounding ring of poles about 100 ft. in height, which org stayed to iho earth with insulated wire ropes. There are other stays for the mast itself, adding further to the web of wires,, which have been woven on the spot. A feature ol the great mast (which is four times as high as the Graud Hotel) is that it has no foundation. It stands on a blunt point, which rests on a number of thick plates, which effectively disconnect the mast from the earth electricallv. The wires above are practically doubled by tho counterpoise or web of wires, which radiate from the mast about three feet abovi. the ground. Thin counterpoise is an offset against absorption by the earth oi the electrical waves, and a general concentration. Tht? Pennant Hills station is reported to have spoken 2000 miles in the day time, and 4000 miles at night, and if that station can perform such work, the Awftnui and Bluff stations will have just as big a working radius. "Of course," said Mr. T. Buckley, chief electrician to the Post and Telegraph Department, "wo hear that these distances havo been worked, but until the official' reports aro available it might not be well tn rely on them too much. The wireless is freakish. When I was in America I heard of a station on the coast which had spoken to Japan— at night. Curious things have been done on freak nights, but when it comes to working day and night steadily, you'cannot rely on such figures." Mr. Buckley has visited the Pennant Hills, which he considers a very welloquippsd 30-kilowatt station.