AURORA'S WIRELESS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2801, 20 June 1916, Page 7

AURORA'S WIRELESS

$ : — .. ' HER FATEFUL MESSAGE. How the message which told of tho misfortunes of the Aurora, oue of the ships engaged- in Sir Ernestton's Antarctic Expedition, was transmitted is now told for the first time. By a freak of nature it was sent 900 miles with an apparatus nominally suitable for about 200 miles radius. Through tho Wireless Press the situation is described by Mr. Lionel Hooke, the operator aboard the Aurora. When the Aurora, under' Lieutenant Mackintosh, R.N.R., was about to leave Sydney in December, 1914, for her journey to'the Ross Sea, where she was to await, the arrival of . Sir Ernest Shackleton and his party after. their journey across the Antarctic Continent, it was suggested that the ship might be materially safeguarded in her perilous journey, it alio carried a wireless • equipment. No sooner was the suggestion made than tho people of Sydney, with their traditional public-spirited generosity, subscribed for the necessary plant. Tho one purchased was that which proved so useful in the Mawson expedition a short time before.

It was hoped that with two or three wireless stations operating in the Southern Seas, and a constant stream of traffic between New Zealand and tho Straits of Magellan, useful signals might be exchanged on occasions when help might be considered necessary. There .was just the remote possibility also that, under "freak" conditions, some message might get through to the wireless station established' for scientific research iu Macquarie Island, and another much more powerful station at Awarua in the south of New Zealand.

The installation was given an effective transmitting radius of about 200 miles, and Hooke reports that he was able to keep in constant communication with Macquarie Island until the period arrived of perpetual daylight, when wifeless signals carry, only about a third of the distance which is possible in darkness.

AVhen the Aurora was carried away by tho blizzard of May 19, 1915, Hooke at once endeavoured to get in touch with tho marooned party, hoping that, they had been' able to erect the receiving installation previously landed. On June 1, basing his hopes on the fleeting possibilities of abnormal wireless conditions, Hooke began to call Australia, but without success. One reason for this was that tho Commonwealth, in tho interests of economy, had recalled the staff of the wireless station at Macquarie Island. .This removed the first possibility of in-ter-communication with tho little party drifting in tho Antarctic ice. During the long Antarctic winter, after the ship had been crushed in the ice, Hooko overhauled his apparatus, and night after night sat in his calm straining to catcli sounds which would tell of tho world's knowledge cf the ship's fate. Twice in August he heard faint signals, but they were unintelligible.

Not 'until. March .25 this year, with a quadruple aerial 80ft. above ideck, did Hooke succeed in obtaining definite signals from stations in Tasmania and New Zealand, 990 miles distant. Then followed the message which thrilled tho world, and which was transmitted 900 miles with an apparatus normally suitable for about 2i'o miles' radius.