Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1910. WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10122, 19 October 1910, Page 4

Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1910. WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY.

WiKEiiESS telegraphy is but fifteen years old, yet it lias become a vital aid to the safety of shipping, and an instrument of ever-increasing value to commercial and social life. It lias recently shown great possibilities of tracking criminals, it has provided a new factor in offensive and defensive warfare, and it has opened up the prospect that communication between nations will become much more cheap and easy than at present. No familiarity with the subject, however, can quite remove the vague feeling of wonder with which one sees the operator draw his message out of space, and decipher the message conveyed to him from another station, maybe .1 thousand or more miles away. There have been many instances of the val-: ue of this science in saving life and property at sea. The C.Q.D. signal i is a widely-recognised signal for as- ] sista.ncc, and lias been the means of j bringing help to many a distressed vessel from a hundred or more miles I away, and as time goes on more and I more ships of the mercantile I marine will be equipped with I wireless telegraphy, until such installations become recognised ' as necessary to the safety f and up-to-date working of a vessel. In the British Navy every battleship, 1 cruiser, and destroyer is fitted with Marconi apparatus; indeed, without this means of communication it 1 would be scarcely possible to carry out the rapid and carefully-planned evolutions characteristic; of modern warfare. In military operations also wireless telegraphy is being more ! largely used, a portable apparatus j having been designed specially for ' that purpose. Commercial transAtlantic communication is, according to "T.P.'s Weekly," bound to develop rapidly in usefulness. Telegrams ' are accepted for transmission by 1 wireless at the rate of 7id per word to Montreal, Toronto, and New York City. To all other places in Canada | and North America the Marconi

Company maintain their rates 4£d per word less than those shown in the current Post Office Guide!. There are two rates for the transmission of telegrams to, ships at sea. To ships within reach of the lower power stations the rate is IOJd per word, to those only within reach of the higher power stationis the rate is 3s per word. Future developments will lead to reduced charges, and as man's command over hitherto unknown forces of Nature increases, it is probable that the use of wire for the transmission of messages will cease entirely, and tlie deep-sea cable become a thing of the past, and the suburban road will no longer be disfigured with telegraph p-'-'s and wires.