Radio in the Desert

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 33, 28 February 1930, Page 12

Radio in the Desert

New Development in Egypt -~ HE Egyptian Government has recently sanctioned a scheme which will place Cairo in direct communication with the principal oases of the Libyan Desert by means of a chain of fixed ahd mobile wireless telegraph ‘stations. In yiew of this a number of young Egyptian engineers have been sent to Europe for trqining in radio. The Libyan Desert is in essence a vast elevated broken plateau of rocks, principally limestone and standstone,*. with an area of some 360,000 square miles, over which the humble camel caravans plod for months at a time. This immense plateau contains syn(ry deep pockets or depressions. and in certain of these pockets are oases. which vary in aren from 300 sqnerre miles, in the cases of the Great Oasis of Dakhla, to the 40 square miles of the Little Oasis of Baharia. It is onses such as these that are to be eonnected together by radio. On entering Egypt from foreign territory,, the goofs carried by camel caravans must pay Egyptian ad valorem Customs dues at the first oases at whieh the caravan halts. ~In order to ensure that taxes are collected from every cargyan entering Egypt, the Nenuty Director-General of the Fgvptian Yrontiers Administration is equinping the desert motor convoy patrols on the caravan routes with mobile wireless stations mounted on six-wheeled lorries. Thus the BPevptian Frontiers: J

Administration offices in the ornses will he kept informed of the positiqns of caravans, whilst the wireless stations in the oases will be in direct touch with Cairo. Technical difficulties in the way of securing regular and efficient wireless communication bhétween Chiro. the oases. and the mobile patrol stations. over broken desert country snd. in the deep oases, depressions, call for yorv eareful design of the Cairo transmitting station, which has masts 250 feet high and an "earth" system cont#ining twenty miles of conper — strins. Work on the Cairo station is nesrly completed, but the erection of the oases stations must of necessity be slaw and laborious. The Eeyptian Government hones by means of the new wireless stations to expefite the formidable task it has undertaken of making a detailed snrvey of the whole of the areas of the Tihvan and Arabian deserts which lie in Weyntian territory. and intensive exploration and survey work is proeeefing econtinnously. With the méchanisation and speeding up of des--ert transport, the glamour and romance of the desert is fast disappearing. Yet the legends of the so-called "lost" ofses, such as Zerzura, persist, and it is quite possible that in the immensity of the Libyan TNesert there exist oases as yet unvisited. _ >

‘or a Can you solve a difficult problem? See "TRIALS IN TACT" (On page 38 of this issue),