RADIO WONDER BOX

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 913, 5 March 1930, Page 14

RADIO WONDER BOX

REVOLUTIONISING WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY A “Daily Mail” reporter carried out a test recently of a new all-British invention called the Stenode Radioslat System of radio communication. It will, it is claimed, assure traffic control in the ether. The inventor of it. Dr. James Robinson, late chief of wireless research to the Royal Air Force, stood beside the mystery box, the existence and purposes of which were exclusively announced in the “Daily Mail.” Before the test was made it was claimed that as a result of the invention: —

Many more European broadcasting stations will be able to find “channels” on the ether. At present, with the channels 9,000 cycles wide to prevent one station from interfering with another, only 110 channels are available. Howls from neighbours and interferences of all kinds will become a thing of the past. Listeners will be able to go silently and efficiently from one European programme to another. Ten thousand words a minute can be telegraphed. The telegraphing of unlimited pictures will be facilitated. The cost of telegraphy and telephony ill be greatly reduced. Ten times the amount of traffic can be carried over existing telegraph and telephone lines. For the purposes of the test, a room near Oxford Street West, was fitted with an ordinary valve receiving set to which the mystery box had been fitted; an ordinary valve receiving set without this attachment; and a set which transmitted shrieks and howls and sundry other noises across the room on a frequency only 50 cycles removed from that of 2LO. Fifty cycles are l/180th of the width of the channel permitted between broadcasting stations. Both the valve sets were tuned in to 2LO (and therefore to the noisy transmitter across the room) and reception was begun. On the valve set which was not fitted with the mystery box the music of 2LO and the din from the trans mitter in the room came through in an indescribable medley of noise. No amount of tuning would separate the din and the music. On the set fitted with the mystery box it was possible to tune out 2LO

or the noisy transmitter at will. The inventor of the mystery box said: “We are not going to sell this box. Manufacturers will be invited to incorporate my invention in the sets they build. “In my opinion it will not add to the cost of a good set. It will, in fact, cheapen the co3t in certain circumstances. In America a six or sevenvalve set is often necessary because of the great number of stations on the air—the owner paying more for his set to secure adequate “filtration” so to speak. Dr. Robinson also said that between the wave-lengths of 300 and 600 metres they could in future employ 5,000 stations', whereas at present the number was only 25. Without absorbing much spaca in the ether it would be possible to transmit at the rate of 10,000 words a minute. It would be feasible to telegraph the whole contents of a daily newspaper in a few minutes, botii reading matter and pictures. Instead of paying so much a word the rate in future would be so much per inch. The device could also be applied to existing land telegraph and telephone lines, enabling them lo carry ten times the existing amount of traffic. Colonel Simpson predicted that the time would come when Empire newspapers would be published simultaneously in London, Capetown, Sydney, Montreal, and Calcutta.