OUT OF THE AIR

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10607, 4 June 1920, Page 10

OUT OF THE AIR

THE WIZARDRY OF WIRELESS. Through a bedroom window in London recently there came rapid automatic wireless telephone messages that were being sent out by a Bolshevik operating in Moscow. A “Daily Chronicle” representative, who listened to these communications, heard also messages from Hanover and Carnarvon. They were all received on a new and specially-designed machine set, which Mr Powell Rees (brother of Sir J- D. Roes, M.P.), has invented. It has been named the ‘‘H.P.R. Long Range Receiving Set,” and its manufacture for amateurs is shortly to he begun in the Old Country. The remarkable feature of this set is that it is all contained in a .tiny box, and is said to be bo simple in its mechanism that a child can work it. Its range of capacity can he easily increased without making it clumsy. The cost of manufacture is.only a few pounds. With three thermionic valves which may he described in nou-tech-nical terms as “magnifiers,” messages sent from a distance of thousands of miles can be heard with great distinctness. Every Sunday, between 3 and 6 and 6 and Mr Rees listens to -a telephonic concert in Italy, and telephonic conversation from other stations .are regularly heard. The American stations are plainly readable on this tiny set although the aerial used is only a wire Ssft long lumg between the upper bedroom window and a. tree at the bottom of the garden. Mr Rees has spent some years in experimenting in wireless, and is a member of the Wireless Society. Included in his patented achievements are his system for reducing the space occupied by the apparatus for long wave lengths.