WIRELESS TELEPHONE.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 May 1921, Page 12

WIRELESS TELEPHONE.

BARQUE WITH FULL EQUIPMENT. INTERESTING DETAILS.

The small barque Manurewa, 327 tons, which arrived at Wellington on Monday with a load of timber from Grafton, Clarence river, New South Wales, is equipped with a wireless telephone which has created quite a lot of interest on the Australian coast. Recently Captain Holmes entertained miscellaneous wireless operators in coastal stations and on other vessels at sea by sending gramaphone music through wireless waves to them. The Manurewa is fitted with a short wireless aerial stretched between two of the masts, and snugly ensconced in the cabin aft is a complete telegraphic and telephonic installation, with a childishly simple receiver and a wonderfully intricate transmitter, representing the latest, and one of the greatest departures of scientific progress. The entire plant, including coils, reserve batteries, and switches, could be covered with four square feet of “doth. There is a small switch, the turning of which transforms the instrument from telegraphic to telephonic. By the useless telephone transmitter an ordinarily-modulated human voice can be carried hundreds of miles through almost any atmospheric conditions, and received at the other end without any rasp or distortion that is inseparably connected with the ordinary city wire telephone. One of the strangest facts about the invention is that any ordinary wireless plant can receive the voice.

Recently, when the Manurewa was proceeding up the New South Wales coast, from Newcastle to Clarence river, the barque passed the Elmaren, a big Swedish steamer of about 10,000 tons, and the operator commenced talking to her over the wire. Although not able to reply with the voice, the operator on the big boat sent messages back in Morse, expressing surprise and delight. Captain Holmes, of the Manurewa, then gave the Elmaren some music from his gramophone, and the listeners on the latter vessel said that the music had lost none of its richness or qualitv when transmitted by wireless. Several other boats and stations were similarly treated.

Captain Holmes claims that the Manurewa is the first sailing vessel to have a wireless telephonic equipment. His particular plant is the invention of A. F. Pendleton, of San Francisco, and was installed on the barque last October. The complete cost of installing a wireless telenhonic plant of the same type as ihe Mannrewa’s in a town where an electric lighting plant exists would be about .£4OO to £5OO. Inclusive of electric apparatus the cost would %e £lOOO. On the Manurewa the electric plant is used, apart from the wireless, for lighting the vessel.