POSI AND TELEGRAPH SERVICES

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 44, 16 November 1920, Page 8

POSI AND TELEGRAPH SERVICES

IMPROVEMENTS IN VIEW MR. SHRIMPTON'S INVESTIGATIONS Mr. E, A. Shrimpton, Chief Telegraph .Engineer of the Post "and Telegraph department, who has been in ttio United Kingdom since August 13. left Liverpool lor New York on November 5. During his stay in the Old Country Mr. Shrimpton has been busily engaged investigating oil matters relating lo telegraph ana telephone ndministratioii and operation. The latest advances iii wireless telegraphy and telephony have been carefully examined, and on one occasion Mr. Shrimpton, speaking from tho Marconi Company's works at Chelmsford, England, was in telephonic communication with Mr. Marconi, who, at tho time, was about 1000 miles away in a yacht specially equipped with wireless telephony apparatus. '. Mr. Shrimpton is convinced that wireless telephony will nlay an important part in the Pacific in the near future, as it isx-pccinlly suited for linking up. places such, as lighthouses and isolated islands with'civilisation, s The question of linking up tho North and South Islands by a telephone cable laid under the waters of Cook Strait has also received consideration, but until tenders are called it will nut, be known whether the cost of the work would at present be justified, on account of the high prices ruling for all the raw materials that enter into its composition. To overcome the delay that is being experienced in connection with the supply of the Murray printing telegraph apparatus that has been under order for some years past, Mr. Shrimpton h.is been able to arrange for certain supplementary parts necessary to complete -a portion of the equipment, and it ia expected that before many months it will be possible to bring a section of this apparatus into use on one of the most congested main telegraph circuits. It will not. however, bo possible to obtain the whole of tho equipment until some months later.. Mr. Shrimpton has been making exhaustive inquiries into recent developments whereby the capacity of overloaded telephone toll lines can bo increased by the amplication of certain principles that are daily in operation in connection with wireless • telegraphy. This has an important tearing upon the telephono toll lines in this country, nnd if tho development? prove to haye reached a practical stage, the erection of many hundreds of miles of costly toll circuits, will be obviated. Beforo leaving the United Kingdom, Mr. Shrimpton' visited the principal industrial centres of both England and Scotland, and made careful inquiry into a number of miscellaneous mattnrs' affecting the carrying out of Post and Telegraph services in New Zealand.