WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY.

King Country Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 84, 29 May 1908, Page 3

WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY.

Lecturing at the Royal Institution a few weeks ago, Mr Marconi gave a useful brief history of the progress of trans-Atlantic wireless telegraphy. It was in December, 1901, that he first managed to signal across the ocean, sending the letter *' s " from Cornwall to an experimental station in Newfoundland. Two months later readable messages were received on the liner Philadelphia from Poldhu up to a distance of 155 1 miles, and test letters up to 2099 miles. Next a long-distance station was erected at Glace Bay, in Nova Scotia, between which and Poldhu messages were for the first time exchanged at night in December, 1902. In the spring of 1903 the transmission of news messages from America was attempted, and for a time messages were correctly received and published in " The Times," until a breakdown in_ the installation at Giace Bay made it necessary to suspend the service. The Glace Bay station was then .reconstructed, and it was decided to build a completely new station in Ireland. At the end of May, 1907, experiments were begun between Glace Bay and the Irish station at Clifden, and on October 17th a limited service for Press messages was opened between Great Britain and America. _ The service was extended to ordinary messages between London and -Montreal on February 3rd. The stations at Clifden and Glace Bay are not yet complete, but communication has never been interrupted across the Atlantic for more than a few hours since the commercial service was begun in October, although, as Mr Marconi observed with a smile, there have been several serious interruptions at Clifden owing to the untrustworthiness of the landlines connecting Clifden to the ordinary Post Office system. For a considerable time the work had to be carried out at night, because during the day there were strong magnetic influences in the air, but now the stations operate both b} r day and by night. The unsatisfactory times are the early morning and the evening, when one side of _ the Atlantic is under daylight conditions while the other is under night conditions. At such times the signals are extremely weak and often cease altogether. _______