WIRELESS.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 August 1925, Page 4

WIRELESS.

TALK WITH OLD FOLKS. WELLINGTON. Aug 17. Away no on the 3-lth. parallel on the i-Hi.t of California lies Santa Monica, a. .-eiui-l topic watering place near l.os Angeles, a young wireless operator, not long out et 'us teens, now in one of the I'niled States battleships, has his home there. Oil the Miramar Peninsula at Wellington. perched on a hillside, is a pleasant suburban residence with two masts and cm non ing wires, with a etrange-looking loop in the middle, indicating a wireless plant of more than ordinary amateur pretensions. I lie young wireless operator in the warship had noted this station, and a day or so after his arrival lie called oil the owner and said he would like to call up his mother in Santa Monica. !’>•!'- mission was roadilv given. • I KNOW IT'S YOE. ED." Santa Monica, at a rough guess, is ahout seven thou.-uml miles away I rum Wellington. The call was made in wireless language. The young operator “got hack right away.” Ihe answering tick-tack came Imm the young man’s sister, who b.as learned .Morse and is an export operator. “I know it’s you Ed,” she replied, “I know your list." In one way reading Mllr.se is very much like reading handwriting. If you are used to it. you can pick it without a moment's hesitation. Immediately the brother and sister began to “talk" to each other across the seven thousand mill's ol ocean that separated them. “Ed.” was able to tell the old folks at Inline that he was having a. wonderful trip, and that he was bringing home some lovely i.faanier rugs as they call them in the States, which he had bought in New Zealand. These rugs, lie added, were the best in the world, 'limn the two began to talk about intimate I'nniilv ailairs. A STRANGE COINCIDENCE. It was a strange coincidence that tlie New Zealand wireless man had previously “talked" with this very American before be had joined the !• loot. and when, like himself, he was an amateur wireless operator. I his present signalling was done on a wave-length of 33 metres, and to a layman a strange thing about il is that while t lie station is talking to America on this wave, no one in Now Zealand can hear it, at least in the day-iime, when one must lie SIS'I or 1000 miles away to pick up the signals. People in Now York and Boston can hear it quite plainly, hut so far as the operators at Dunedin or Christchurch, or Day's liav, just across the harbour are concerned. it is dumb, and yet at night it. can be heard on a 38 metres wave. Oil a 20 metres wave, which is much . shorter, the operator can communicate with stations 12.00(1 miles away at I night. Once he had a yarn with a I follow iii Essex. England. V ilh a gi- j von power, one tan communicate ton times as far by Morse as he can by telephone, hut who shall say that before many years have passed, the New Zealander will not be able actually to , talk to the explorer in his ship at the North Pole “ CALL FROM THE ARCTIC. In this quiet suburban homo at Miramar, from which the American sailor called up his sister, the Wellington man once heard an operator in an aeroplane calling up the ship Peary, from which he lmd ascended in the Arctic regions, and the airman was saving that his magnetic compass was absolutely useless. Where he then was must have been almost or actually above the magnetic Pole, which is a considerable distance from the true Pole. It is surely one of the marvels of modern science that the signals from a man flying above the North Magnetic Pole should be heard in New Zealand, and it sets one wondering what marvels will he possible to the next generation. Already the Miramar man has communicated with 8i people in the ( nit--ed States, five in Canada, live in England. four in Italy, two in the Argentine. Chile, and France, anti one each in Brazil. Cuba. l’"i to Rico. Bermuda, and Sweden. Such are among the wonders of wireless. It he van do this, what may his grandchildren he able j to accomplish ! j