Wireless "Weather"

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 25, 3 January 1930, Page 15

Wireless "Weather"

Peculiar. Phenomenon IRELESS has a "climate" and "weather" of its own, stated Mr. R. ‘A, Watson Watt in a lecture he delivered before the Royal Meteorological Society recently. Wireless as a means of communieation is essential in modern meteorology, because it alone is capable of giving sufficiently rapid interchanges of data over wide areas. The results of observations made ali over: Great Britain are in the hands of the central forecaster within an hour, the majority of the data for Burope are received within an hour and a half, and that for the whole Northern Hemisphere within six hours. HM weakening of signals over dif- ' ferent kinds of country, according to time of day and season, and the dependence of atmospheric disturbance on latitude, place and time, are ‘climatologieal in scope. The quickperiod changes, the erratic phenomena of fading, are part of the "weather". of wireless-atmospherics are its "rainfall," The lecturer declared that the average atmospheric is a hundred thousand times as strong as a readable signal, They have been known to disturb broadeast reception up to four thousand miles from their place of origin. _ Atmospherics originate in thunder- storms, and the predominant source of the world’s supply of atmospherics at any moment usually lies in a land where it is summer afternoon. ‘The average atmospheric received in England .is of such strength as would be sent out by a thunderstorm 2000 miles away. a Speaking of the alleged effects of wireless on weather, Mr. Watson Watt stated that the average rainfall of Hngland requires for its production the expenditure of energy at the rate of a third of a million horse-power per square mile night and day throughout the year. . : The total rate of emission energ from the broadcasting stations of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in the limited periods during which they "work, is less than 55 horse-power. Any effect of broadcasting on wea: ther would therefore be due to "subhomo opa hic doses" of less than one in a thousand million. RN Seemann}