Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star THURSDAY, FEB. 3rd, 1921. WIRELESS WONDERS.

Hokitika Guardian, 3 February 1921, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star THURSDAY, FEB. 3rd, 1921. WI RELESS WONDERS.

In the realm of science, wireless telephony has already developed in such marvellous fashion that only the rashost of the rash "ill venture to set a limit to its possibilities. The high degree of perfection to which it lias attained was demonstrated in December last at Marconi House, in the Strand, London, in connection with the gathering of newspaper correspondents representing the press of the world, at the first Conference of the League of Nations at Geneva. The event was invested with special interest owing to the fact that Dr Alexander Graham Bell, the distinguished American who invented the Bell telephone nearly half a century ago sent a wireless telephone communication from London to Geneva. Viscount Burnham, was also present, and addressed a message of cordial greetingsto the newspaper representatives in the Swiss city Both speakers used an ordinary desk telephone in a director’s room at Marconi House, the instrument being connected by a Post Office line direct to the wireless apparatus at the Marconi Company’s Chelmsford station. This apparatus automatically and instantaneously relayed t'’o message to Geneva, so that mi effect the speakers were in direct communication with Switzerland operating the wireless plant by means of their voicas a distance of between 400 and 500 miles. Lord Riddell and Senator Marconi also sent messages the former addressing the seiribete at, Geneva thus:—“This looks like causing a revolution in journalistic methods. Think of the profo md joy of the foreign correspondent in I cing in constant touch day and night with the head office! The revolution may take time but it is bound of come and will make life moire interesting even though more strenuous. Mankind will have to develop a new sort of nervous system to make full use of these privileges. Good luck to you all.” There may be two sets of opinion upon the joys of being in “constant touch

with head office’’; and also, maybe, con- * cerning the desirability of the more strenuous life which progress in “wireless’ ’and other means of communication promises to entail, but there could be no doubt ns to the success of the Marconi House demonstration which concluded with the playing of two

gramophone records, Kreisler’s “Caprice Viennois” and the Allies’ Natioral Anthems. At Geneva the messages and music were intercepted by the aerial at the Marconi receiving station and carried over several miles of landline to the Conference of the League. The journalists there were able to hear every word by means of ordinary +elei hone receivers. The voices of Lord Burnham and Dr Hell were reported by Geneva to lie very clear, that of Lord Burnham being instantly recognised by the-English journalists present. This is the first occasion on which a person in the country has been able to speak by wireless telephony direct from London to Switzerland, using the .same telephone as that with which ho would speak to any office in the city. It foreshadows the time when “wireless” and landdine will he permanently linked thus extending the range of telephony over the civilised world. The clearness of the messages at Geneva astonished the newspaper correspondents, but eveji more striking

* evidence of the value of this means of j communication was forthcoming when I the telephone receivers were discarded ! and a stentorphono connected with the [ receiving apparatus. The stentorphono may be described as a magnifying trumpet from which sound is projected by means of a pneumatic' fan. Gramaphone music played into a transmitter in England was so magnified bv the stentorplione at Geneva that it could be distinctly heard in every part of the hall, showing that it is possible for a speaker to sit in his study at home, and •using an ordinary telephone address an audience many miles away.