A MEETING IN TWO HALVES

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 47, 8 June 1928, Page 15

A MEETING IN TWO HALVES

} eee: jt is a2 commonplace that the world grows smaller every day. But it has seldom done so much shrinking in an hour or so as it did the other day when the British and American Institution of Electrical Engineers held a joint meeting by wireless. } The British Institution met in its: council chamber on the Victoria Em-. bankmeut, London, and the American Institute in the Engineering Society’s Building in New York, where 1000 members were assembled from all parts. , ON the table in either room was a microphone, and high above it were two loudspeakers. The English microphone communicated by land wires with the wireless = trausmitting station at Rugby, and then with the American receiving station at Houlton, Maine, whence land wires reached the American loudspeakevs, The American microphone, on the other hand, communicated with a transmission station at Rocky Point, ALong Island, and then with the British | receiving station at Cupar, in Fife, | and the London loudspeakers. The wireless wayes across the Atlantic covered 3000 miles and the land wires 1200 more. , OMMUNICATION was opened with a "Good morning" from New York, | where it was morning, and a "Good afternoon" from London, where it was, afternoon. ‘Then the voice of Mr. Gherardi, president of the American Institute, came through the loudspeak- | ers saying that it would give his Ameri-. can colleagues great pleasure if Mr. Page, as president of the British Institution, the senior society, would act as chairman. | ME. PAGE replied that he felt the invitation to be a great honour, and forthwith took the chair in the ‘London room. The chair in the American room necessarily remained empty, fur human bodies cannot yet be in two places at once, like human voices; but a portrait of Mr. Page was promptly flashed on to a screen immediately above it, | Bach speaker, as the chairman called on him, was represented in the room in which he was not himself present by the prompt appearance of his photograph on the screen. There was laughter at both ends when the chairman in London, in calling on the mover of the principal resolution, said, "We are delighted to have with us, in New York, General John Carty, past president of the American Institute’? It is diflicult to imagine any limits to the usefulness of this new form of conference. Isverybody feels the need of more frequent meetings of the Imperial Conference of the King’s Dominions, but distance has always stood in the way. Why not conferences by wireless, at least 10 prepare the way?