WIRELESS MARVELS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 282, 1 May 1914, Page 3

WIRELESS MARVELS.

BOAT WITHOUT A CREW. Already messages are sent, clocks run, .photographs transmitted, b*lls lung, locomotives operated, and ti'ain signals sent by wireless. Are we now on the point of seeing submarines and torpedoes handleu by the same agency? queries a London exchange. _ .An article by Mr Cleveland Mofi'ott in ".M'Clure's Magazine" describing the experiments and achievements <tf 31r tlohn Hayes Hammond, jar., seems to "show that it is not at all unlikely. Mr Hammond, who is only twenty-five years old, is the son of the famous mining' engineer, and after an all-round education ;has given himself up to the -study , 0 f radio-dynamics. At his summer home m Massacluissets. overhanging Gloucester Bay, in; has erected a wireless station with two masts three hundred feet high, a power-house with the fastest electric generators in the workl, and a searchlight which throws a light of 18(1,000,000 candle-power seven miles out to sea. With these he has'succeeded in solving the problem .of controlling from the shore nil the movements of a vessel out at .sea,.

ELECTRIC DOG WONDER. Mr. Hammond's first experiences in this line were with .a searchlight acting oil Selenium. He invented an electric dog fitted with a motor, a storage batterv. >t,wo selenium disss, two relays, and two solenoid magnets. It had an electric -switch for the tail and ran on three ■brass wheels, two jji front and one beiund. When anyone walked in front ■bearing a lantern, tfee dog would follov, turniisg to the right or left according to the movements of the lantern. Mr Hammond applied the sensitiveness to light of selenijun to the business of steering a boat from the land. Liwug a powerful scarcbifght to stimulate the selenium cells on board the vessel lie succeeded in steering her all over iJi-e- J»iborj but as a practicable method of achieving his ejid he soon discarded this plan in favour of control by wireless. Picking up an old houseboat he equipped iM with gas engines, generators, tetteries, relays, condensers, induction coils, mieronometers, a new keel, and two b|g receiving masts, and after months of discouragement and groping indued ft to respond to a wireless impulse. Then he discovered that the receivers in use in the boat, though the best that could be had, were not to be depended upon, lie scoured Europe for something more reliable, but in vain. P STEERED BY' 3IAN OX SHORE. Finally he perfected one himself that answered all the calls made upon it. The next thing was to build a boat that wouia . thoroughly test the whole-idea. The Radio, accordingly, was constructed . to his orders, a slim, rakish craft, 40 feet long, with ISO horse-power engines in her, and 3 guaranteed speed oF 33 1 miles ait hour, «nd fitted with the latest radio-dynamic apparatus.

This is the lioat that, sometimes without a soul on board, may be seen day an.l night dashing aDout Gloucester Bay, zigzagging in and out among the shipping', rocks and buoys, turning to port and starboard, now going full steam ahead and now" going at half speed, now backing and stopping—and in obedience to a man on shore, anywhere from a mile to six miles away, who touches a key that a child could press. When he had tested his invention under all conditions, Mr Hammond incited the Chief of the United States Coast Artillery and another expert officer to inspect it ih operation. "Together they saw the boat headed for a definite marlc a mile away, two miles, three miles away, and strike it with precision every time."