HOW WIRELESS WORKS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4441, 17 July 1922, Page 1

HOW WIRELESS WORKS.

BES’I APPARATUS FOR AMATEURS In the .following article, written specially for “The Daily Mail,” Mr. EL Bi tike, A.M.I. E.E., explains in simple language the mysteries of wireless telephony and broadcasting: Wireless broadcasting is a metho I of sending a telegraph or telephone message to an unlimited number of persons at one and the same time, -so that they all receive it at the same moment, no matter whether they are near to or remote from the broadcasting station, so long as they are within its working range. Wireless is ideal fpr this purpose because, unless specially adapted, a wireless transmitter (sending station) always broadcasts, even if the message is intended for one receiver only, Tlhis is because the wireless waves which carry the message spread out from the sending station in ever-widening 'circles instead pf in one direction only. Beyond a certain distance from the station, dependent upon the power off the apparatus, these waves are too weak to be reliable, but, at any place inside tihe circle which indicates the limit of their usefulness we may “pick up” the waves and receive the message. Thus one wireless station can easily communicate with hundreds (thousands, if you like) of receivers at the same time, just as a speaker can address 'hundreds of people at once.

A receiver is an apparatus which converts the wireless waves sent out by the tarnsmitter into an audible torn—that is, into the long and short buzzes or whistles of the Morse code, if you are receiving telegraphy, or into musical sounds or human speecn if you are receiving telephony. The manufacture of receivers specially intended for home use in connection with tlhe forthcoming wireless concerts is being speeded up. Ulrese receivers will be made in attractive designs and will be just as mucn “pieces of furniture” as good gramophones. There will be no unsightly batteries or tangles of wire, no sparks, no danger, or even possibility of; electric shocks, and nothing to get out of order.. All to be seen will be a .handsome cabinet fitted with neat switches, and, in some cases, a small electric lamp. You see in your newspaper that Mme. X. will sing at 8 p.m. At that hour you will move a •switch, turn a little handle —and her voice will, be heard. Yet you will be in Surbiton or Sutton and Mme. X. in Marconi House, Strand, W.C. At 8.30 p.m. the Bishop of — is to lecture, at Birmingham on —. You turn the hand’e slightly. Ah I there he is. As 9.15 p.m. someone is to address a meeting at Cardiff. He is a Welshman. You simply must hear him, though supper grows cold. You turn the handle a quarter of an inch, “tuping” In to the Cardiff station. You (hear him.. Ten o’clock. The 7 famous, male choir is to sing a vesper at Plymouth'. The favourite aunt positively demands that you shall have it. Again the ’handle is moved. Raptures—and so to supper and to bed. Now the Marconiphones and other receivers will be priced, broadly speaking, in accordance with the distance from which they will receive. If you are content witlh such programmes as may be provided by the broadcasting station nearest to you, provided you are reasonably near one, your total outlay for a complete set wi’l be about £6. The upkeep—fo ; ' renewals of batteries—will cost a few ■shillings a year. The Marconi Company—who were the first to begin broadcasting 20 years ago' in the form of news to ships at sea—are offering sets varying in price from £5 to £4O, and the higher the price the more you will be able to hear.

The best advice I can offer is that you decide on a set which will do the maximum; Jong observation of wireless amateurs has shown me tihat “once bitten, all shyness, vanishes.’’ You will want to be in touch not with London only, but with the world—and Mars as well., were it possible. However, as pockets must be considered, for £lO ro £l5 you can obtain a receiver wihich will enable you to listen to several broadcasting stations in Britain, and also to time signals from Eiffel Tower station, by means of which you can set your clocks by Che Paris Observatory. The sets of the Marconi Company which are designed for the special reception of tihe broadcasted pro--grammes being arranged are “foolproof,” and require no expert knowledge and no skill in operation.., They can be used in your dr.awhig.-roomi, or garden, or houseboat, and, if; designed for use with a portable aerial, they can be carried in a motor-Jc.ar or boat, cr to a picnic. They are of the same simplicity 'as an upl-to-date camera. if you learn the principles of wireless and become a “regular” wireless amateur, then a new world of interest and experiment will be open to you ; you will abandon your “fool-prpof” sets for experimenters’ sets, wlhjch you will learn to operate so that they will bring to you at will not only messages from over a paltry few hundred miles or so,, but signals from the capitals of Europe, from ships in midocean, from Africa, and even from America. The aether age dawns. No longer are we dependent upon material links between continent and continent. The universal aetiher carries our voice at the astounding speed of 186,000 miles a second, than which no greater speed is known to science. By wireless we can speak direct to Australia in a fourteenth part of a second. Wireless has shrivelled the world to insignificant dimensions.