LIGHTED BY WIRELESS

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4767, 22 October 1924, Page 1

LIGHTED BY WIRELESS

INVENTORS CLAIM. TO BROADCAST ELECTRICITY. Remarkable results have followed the test of an invention by which, it is claimed, electricity can be transmitted for light and power without cable or wires. It has been made by Mr J. J. Dawson, of Leigh-on-Sea, and Mr F. G. Milner, of Southend (Eng.), and it is stated that by this system electricity could be generated at a station in Wales and sent by wireless to Scotland.

A large firm has now agreed to develop the scheme on the financial side, following a demonstration at Leigh.

During the demonstration a transmitting apparatus was placed on Mr Milner's motor-yacht moored to the shore, and a dinghy was ro.wed some distance with a receiver on board. There were also electric lights, fans, dynamos, and bells in the boat. Immediately the dinghy began to move tlfe current was switched on. The lamps lit, the motors revolved, and the tans and belle worked. The dinghy was rowed round in circles, and the current still had effect at a distance of 250 yards.

Mr Alilner, in an interview, said: “By our system it will be possible to have a central generating station that will provide electricity in the ordinary way. The electric current will then be sent by means of an aerial into the air, and can be received at any building wired in the ordinary way by wsing a special receiver, which must be ’tuned in.’ “The current is absolutely innocuous in the air. We have proved, too, by placing a Marconi wireless within three feet of our apparatus, that it has no effect whatever on the wireless current. '

“Our invention is worked by means of direct current, and not alternating current. On the apparatus there is nothing moving, nothing glowing, and there are no valves.

“We have already transferred current from one roo mto another”, and ni less than six months it should be possible to supply from a generating station having a radius of three miles enougii current to light al) the houses and work the machinery in a town. I can guarantee that the cost of light and power in the home by our system will be 33 1-3 per cent, cheaper at least than by any other system at present employed. “There is no cost of cables. The only wiring is within the house and on'the aerial. The receiving box is only six or eight inches square in a small set, and the receiver itself acts as meter. The saving on cables and maint*.nance would more than compensate for any loss of current through the air. “At the present moment, if I erected a station on Canvey Island I could lignt and run all the road traffic by means of wireless electricity. “It was just by accident that we hit on the whole system. Experts who have seen it state that it is contrary to all theories of electricity/’

The technical director of the firm which has taken up the scheme was enthusiastic.

“If what the inventors, claim is correct,’’ he said, “it will be possible to light the whole countryside almost by means of radiating electricity.” Many electrical firms In Britain, and also the Australian Government, are stated to have been in communication with the inventors during the last month. Mr Dawson, who is the originator of the system, is only twenty-six years old.