WONDERS OF WIRELESS.

Taihape Daily Times, 28 September 1918, Page 2

WONDERS OF WIRELESS.

ENGLAND TO FUTURE POSSIBILITIES. The first wireless message to 'be transmitted nearly half-way round the world was, as a Press Association \ cablegram stated on Monday, one received in Australia from W. H. Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia, and Sir Joseph Cook, Federal Minister for the Navy, appealing for reinforcements. Particulars of the epoch-making event have been received by the New Zealand superintendent of Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia), Ltd., Mr. J. L. Mulholland, of Wellington. The message was transmitted from the Marconi Trans-Atlantic station at Carnarvon, in Wales, and received at Wahroonga, near Sydney, by means of what is known as the “103” receiver, with the. use of aerials 70ft nigh and 100 ft long. Mr Mulholland explains that while this was the first official wireless message to Australia, that does not mean that it was the first message from England picked up in Australia. As a matter of fact, the whole world is open to direct messages —they could 1 be picked up at the furthest possible point on the earth’s surface from the place of despatch. Formerly distan- ' ces were limited owing to lack of sufficiently sensitive receivers to pick up long-distance messages, hut the “103” receiver had eliminated distance troubles. For some time past direct English and American messages, as well as messages from the German station at Nauen, have been picked up at Wahroonga. Probably, added Mr. Mulholland, such messages have been picked up at the New Zealand stations also. The 013 crystal receiver or detector has been superseded generally by the Marconi-Fleming valve receiver, of which “103” is an advanced type. As an example of what work these receivers—now being manufactured in Sydney instead of being imported from England, as was th n case before the war—can do it is a simple matter for vessels fitted with them, when off the Australian coast, to pick up messages sent from New Zealand stations in the daytime, and over a distance of between 5000 and 6000 miles at night . The action of wireless is instantaneous. Taking its speed at 186,000 miles a second, the messages to Australia would take about one-tenth of a second.