Another New Ray

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 21, 7 December 1928, Unnumbered Page

Another New Ray

[Ns an age of unbelievable devedsp- : ments we have arrived at one of the most unexpected of them all. First radio transmission of voice and later television have startled our credulity at their introduction, but now comes the announcement of a.phenomenon surpassing either of them-power by radio. In the. transmission of a picture from point to point the picture as such does not move through space, but in the transmission of power the electrical energy will be actually transmitted through space, independent of the strength of the radio transmitter. Apparently Simple. Mr. Phillips Thomas, Ph.D., research. engineer of the Westinghouse Hlectric and Manufacturing Company of America, in a recent lecture predicted the transmission of power by use of very short-wave radio transmitters. Very short radio waves, of the order of 10 centimetres, may be reflected and focused in a parallel beam in the same manner as light and with comparatively simple apparatus. This type of reflector has been employed on a large scale by Signor Mareoni in his well-known beam =§transmission systems. A few thousand watts concentrated in a short-wave beam could be expected to ionise the air in the path, changing it from an insulator to a fair electrical conductor. T'wo such beams, along parallel paths, would constitute a pair of weightless con-. ductors, literally "hanging in thin air," which could be aimed at any desired point. If the two reflectors were connected to the high voltage terminals of a transformer and the beams focused ra

on two metal targets connected to a similar transformer for reducing the voltage, power could be received without the aid of any further radio apparatus. The power received would not necessarily have any relation to the power of the radio transmitter. Another "Death Ray"? © Rumours of a "death ray" capable of creating havoc in time of war recently created much consternation in the minds of the people. Perhaps their fears may now be realised. for it would be as fatal to life to come into the path of rays energised by the high voltage as it would be to pick up a high-tension wire. Its onslaught on an army would be noiseless, and-at least in daytimeinvisible. Apparatus for producing the 10-centi-metre radio transmission is not ayailable, but it is now in the process of design and construction and wil] soon be tested experimentally. One cannot conceive of any location so remote or inaccessible that it could not be furnished with power by radio. Tf the development becomes practi! for commercial use we may look for universal dissemination of electrical energy. i