BEAM WIRELESS

Hokitika Guardian, 18 February 1927, Page 1

BEAM WIRELESS

WONDERFUL APPARATUS. UNCANNY RAPIDITY. SYDNEY, Jamuary 27. Aeoerding to Press cable messages from London the official tests of the Australian beam wireless service conducted by the British Post Office have not come up to the prescribed standard. Despite this, all the high officials connected with the service in Australia are confident that all will come right in the end. One of these is Sir George Mason Allard, chairman of Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia). Ltd., which is resposnible for the Australian end of the. service.

Sir George Allard was present last Friday evening in the company’s opeiting room in Queen street. Melbourne, witnessing some of the tests being carried out with the General Post Office, London. He described some of the marvels of that nerve centre of the service on his return to Sydney this week. " J was almost astounded.” he said. “ as I stood in that room watching a small apparatus—about the size of a sewing machine—automatically reeling out a tape on which was printed a succession of Morse lettering. Thatlettering skilled operators wore abl? to read with ease and transcribe on to typewriters in plain language or the usual telegraphic code words. One felt that here was something mysterious. uncanny, when one realised that the Alorse-covered tape was printed and poured forth into that Alelbourne room as the effect of a similar machine operating in the London Post Office, at precisely the same moment. The time taken to go half round the world was infinitesimal.

‘ Look.’ said the operator to me. 1 I’ll tell London to stop transmitting.’ lie moved his transmitting key for a second, giving the Alorse signal to stop. Quicker than 1 can tell you. the tapeceased to record. Thus, in two moments Alelbourne oofninuniented with London, and across the world, Alolbourne observed the result.” At the dosing of Friday’s testing session, Sir George Allard sent a message to A'iscoimt AA'olmcr. Deputy Postmas-ter-General. and received a reply at the beginning of the next session. “The process of dispatching the message.” said Sir George Allard, “was intensely interesting. First, on what looked like an ordinary tyewriter. the operator tapped the keys, and from the machine ran out a tape punched with small holes which represented Alorse lettering. This tape was fed into a small transmitting machine, and in a few seconds it passed through at the rate of 175 words to the minute. As 1 stood there flic operator told me that the message had been transmitted and received. At that speed, of course, the message was perfectly secret, and certainlv not available to listeners-in.

“One amusing incident occurred during the tests. The British officer at the Skegness beam transmitting station wished at one stage to request the operator in London to hold down a key to his board, but because of trouble on the lines from Skegness to ’London be was unable to communicate. Therefore he sent a message over the beam to Alelbourne. asking that a message should be sent to London requesting the operator there to hold down the key. This was done. The request was sent 24.000 miles instead of 120 miles from Skegness to London.”