When the Beam Fades

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 362, 24 May 1928, Page 8

When the Beam Fades

RADIO AND CABLE SERVICES Marconi Influence in Dominion AUCKLANDERS find little to interest them, except from The purely detached point of view, in the protracted disputes over shares in the Marconi wireless telegraph organisation. Yet even in Auckland the result of its faraway enterprise is apparent. A large number of press messages, reaching New Zealand from Australia, are transmitted over the greatest part of their journey by means of Marconi’s beam radio.

Already the beam promises to revolutionise world communications. Its development and active competition are disturbing wealthy established interests that a few years ago considered their security unassailable. Cable-men the world over are wondering what the future holds. Complete or even partial extinction of the cable is not feared. The general view is that the cable must always be a supplementary and perhaps more reliable means of communication. But in the meantime it is sufficient to note that between January, 1927, and January, 1928, the England to Melbourne beam handled 49 per cent, of the total business handled by cable and wireless companies operating between England and Australia. New Zealand, lacking a beam station, is not in a position to receive genuine beam messages. But a certain amount of business handled by the beam to Australia comes on to New Zealand by way of the trans-Tasman cables, particularly of the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company, which

has amalgamated with Marconi for the purpose of working in conjunction with the beam. “DIVERTED FROM BEAM” Beam radio has not yet reached a point when it can eliminate fading at irregular intervals. This accounts for the code-mark, “diverted from beam," which is inscribed on many messages received by the New Zealand Press.

Originally these messages were intended for direct transmission to Australia by means of the beam. A condition of their lodgment, however, is that if the beam cannot at once handle them, they must be passed on to the Pacific Cable Board for direct transmission by cable. Hence the fairly regular appearance of the words, “diverted from beam” on press messages handled by the newspapers, suggests that the occasions when the beam is out of action, for however short a time, occur fairly frequently. The cable companies naturally follow the results of these experiments, as far as they are disclosed, with great interest. At present the beam’s great advantage is the enormous speed at which it can operate. Whether or not this is achieved at some slight sacrifice of accuracy and reliability is apparently still open to argument. GOVERNMENT INTERESTS Since the Eastern Cable Company was sufficiently far-sighted to amalgamate with Marconi, the Pacific cable system remains the only service vitally concerned in extension of the beam’s influence in New Zealand, and even here the welfare and security of the older system are likely to be jealously guarded on account of the big interests held in it by the British Government. Here in Auckland, high above Queen Street, the Pacific Cable Board carries on in apparent indifference to the beam or any other innovations. In its offices on the top floor of the Post Office it keeps engaged a staff of SO or 40, among whom are operators, electricians and other specialists. The ceaseless activity of the cable is represented by the rapidly-ticking machines, flickering red lights that show what lines are working, and yards of tape disgorged by the instruments as they record the inward and outward messages. Here, whisked down from Suva as if that palmy hamlet were just across the street, are landed the “dropcopy” cables taken in instantaneous duplicate from the Press messages flashed to Australia, and here, too, come and go thousands of messages, social, diplomatic, political, exchanged by New Zealand with Australia. There are ingenious instruments for amplifying the impulses enfeebled by their long, quick passage across the ocean-bed. Auckland’s cables come ashore at Takapuna and Muriwai, the one reaching the city via Shoal Bay, the harbour floor, and a trench from Ponsonby, and the other travelling underground from Muriwai to Harkin’s Point, on the upper harbour, and so down the harbour to Ponsonby, whence it accompanies the other cable to the city office. One of these days Auckland may have a beam station, too; but even then the cable is likely to remain a valued and indispensable auxiliary.