THE OWNERSHIP OF THE AIR.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9596, 16 September 1909, Page 3

THE OWNERSHIP OF THE AIR.

Who owns the air? Or, rather, who owns the great unknown way of the universe, on which puny man has launched his latest system of communication? These seem to be absurd questions, but already international complications threaten to arise over them. The strange situation ail comes about through the latest developments of wireless telegraphy. It has remained for the far corner of the north-west of the United States, the Pacific frontier, to be the battle ground for the control of the other way. Already there are sullen rumblings of the coming conflict. The Canadian Government wireless telegraph operators are wondering when a more satisractory agreement will be made with the Americans than now exists, for the send ing of aerograms It is a curious fact that when two wireless stations are working, another station in the vicinity can break into the ether way and stop the working stations. In the operators' terms this is known as "interference " To some extent science overcome this difficulty by the use of a device known as a tuner. With this instrument the operator can "tune out." that is shut off stations which he does not want to hear. This operation, however, restricts the use of the atmosphere again, so that in the end the struggle for air is little further advanced than if the tuner was not in use. The tuner has this advantage: it allows an operator to work in peace, even though 1 9thers do want ot interfere, and get 1 their mebsages through And, again, looking at it from this viewpoint, it is might that rules. And the struggle for air goes on just the same.