The Modern Mercury Speeds His Way

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 10, 19 September 1930, Page 8

The Modern Mercury

Speeds His Way

BEAM WIRELESS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND AUSTRALIA PROVIDES | REMARKABLY RAPID AND _ > CERTAIN MEANS OF } COMMUNICATION.

rr jITHIN recent years the knowledge and application of wireless has made y | remarkable advances. Its commercial application has been a veritable \ AN ) | triumph, annihilating distance and bringing the most distant parts of the AP: j world into wireless contact with the centres of civilisation. In that ®) triumph our own section-of the world has not only played a very great part, but in the development of many phases of wireless has led the eas =world. mt . Less than two years ago, the only Alustralian wireless communication services available to the public were the Marine services to and from ships, and the island services between Australia and Papua, and Australia and New Guinea. To-day, step into the Beam offices at Sydney and Melbourne, or enter any Post Office in the Commonwealth and you may send a message, via Beam, to some of the remote places of the world-to Esthonia or Greenland in Europe; Yukon or

Alaska, in North America; to Porto Rico or San Domingo, in the West Indies; Guatemala or Costa Rica, in Central America; to name but a few of the traffic destinations in these particular countries. , By day and night, messages are being dispatched to Great Britain, Europe, Canada, the United States of America and South America, via Beam. The Beam wireless service between Australia and Great Britain and the Continent of Europe, owned and operated by Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia),

Ltd., was opened for commercial traffic on April 8, 1927, and almost immediately leapt into public favour. . Additional Beam facilities were made available on June 16, 1928, by the opening of the service between Australia and North and South America, thus providing not only direct communication with the New World, but also a second link with the Old World, via the Montreal-London Beam circuit. Considering the excellent service rendered to clients-and the lower rates quoted to the public, together with the speed and accuracy of the. Beam system, it is not surprising that to-day the majority of the messages between Australia and Great Britain, the Irish Free State, Europe, Canada, United States of America, and South America are transmitted via Beam. ‘The service has been the means of effecting a saving to the Australian business community of many thousands of pounds per annum. Tue greatest long-distance direct telegraph service in the, world, the Beam service, is operated entirely without retransmission or relays. It is by far the most speedy method of communication yet devised, the speed of working being limited only by the mechanical limitations of fhe manipulating and recording instruments at each terminal, :

Beam wireless signals travel at the‘ rate of 186,000 miles per second, and the sending apparatus handles the messages at the rate of 1250 letters per minute. It will be seen that a message of 125 code words could be in London one minute after transmission commenced in Australia. -The Beam offices of Sydney and Melbourne are open for traffic day and night. The doors are but ornamental-they have never been closed since the inauguration of the service. . The Beam wireless transmitting centre in Australia is located near Ballanabout 50 miles to the North-west of Melbourne, and the receiving centre is at Rockbank-18 miles from Melbourne, in the same direction. Both stations are connected by special telegraph lines with the Beam Wireless offices at Melbourne and Sydney. . At Ballan there are two transmitters-one of which is used for sending messages to London, whence they are distributed through the United Kingdom to Europe, and the other transmits to Montreal all messages for the North and South American Continents. Much of the equipment is in duplicate-some in triplicate-to ensure continuity of service under all conditions. Both stations are under the supervision of a technical staff, whose duty it is to maintain the apparatus in efficient working order. Tae transmission of messages originates at the Beam offices in the heart of Melbourne or Sydney, and the telegraph oper ators there, by means of special telegraph lines to the Beam stations, automatically cause the great transmitters at Ballan to radiate the messages, and likewise messages from London or Montreal are received at Rockbank and automatically passed on to the telegraph centres in Sydney or Melbourne, where they are recorded on tape. Beam messages originating in Sydney and Melbourne are mostly collected by the Beam messengers, or are handed over the counter of the Beam telegraph offices. Messages lodged at the post offices throughout the Commonwealth are handed over to the Beam office. As messages reach the Beam telegraph offices they are numbered, recorded and sorted according to their destination and class (full rate, deferred, daily letter or week-end letter) and distributed to expert machine telegraphists. A continuous stream of messages flows to telegraphists seated at machines resembling typewriters-but in reality high-speed automatic perforators. As quickly as an expert types the message it is transcribed by the machine, but instead of recording it in letters of the ordinary alphabet, the machine punches it in the form of a series of small perforations on paper tape about half an inch wide, similar to music rolls in player pianos. There is a distinctive series of perforations corresponding to ordinary Morse characters for each letter. The rate of transmission is much greater than the rate at which the operator can work a perforating machine, and it is therefore necessary to keep several operators employed punching tape to maintain the high speed of transmission. After the tape is "punched" it is passed through an automatic trans-

mitter at high speed. This transmitter interrupts an electric current in the telegraph line connecting the Beam Wireless offices at Sydney and Melbourne, with the transmitting station at Ballan, Victoria, and actuates at high speed the automatic signalling relay at the transmitting station. Wireless waves, travelling at such high speed that they reach England or Canada-as directed -in a fraction of a second are radiated from the aerials as Morse characters of the message. The signals are picked up by the Beam receiving station at-Skeg-ness, England, or the Canadian Beam station at Yamachiche, and are passed automatically to the Beam offices in London or Montreal respectively. Simultaneously with the feeding of the tape to the automatic transmitter, the message is being recorded by machines at the respective receiving offices in London or Montreal. In glancing at the recording instrument next to the trans« mitter at Sydney or Melbourne Beam

ee offices, one can visualise the tape running through the machine at the other side of the world, and realise as never before, how wireless -_ annihilates distance. In addition to the Beam stations, smaller stations or units are re- . quired for collecting the outward traffic and feeding it to the main Beam stations, and also for distributing the inward Beam traffic to other States. These smaller units, known as Beam feeder transmitters and Beam feeder re--ceivers, have been installed at practically every Ausalian capital. Two Beam feeder transmitters are located at Sydney, two at Melbourne, and one each at Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane. These _ stations transmit traffic direct by wireless

to the Beam : Traffic Office, Melbourne. From here it is automatically transmitted overseas via the Ballan transmitting station. The Beam Feeder transmitting stations at Sydney and Melbourne can be ea aS. ae

utilised almost 1MMmMedcdldleiy 102 CALMAMS ing overseas traffic should a mishap occur at Ballan Transmitting Station, The strenuous work of arranging and supervising the construction of the Australian Beam Stations, and the organisa tion of a staff to operate the service from its inauguration with faultless precision and in competition with telegraphic systems that have been in operation over a number of years, called for organising ability of no mean order. The whole of this work was carried out under the direct supervision of Mr. E. T. Fisk, managing director of Amalgamated Wireless, who for the last decade, had not only visualised direct trans-ocean wireless communication between Australia and Great Britain, and Australia and the other Dontinions, but had consistently advocated and educated the powers that be to a realisation of the needs for such services, -and had demonstrated to them the. technical means and methods by which it could be carried out. To-day Mr. Fisk has the satisfaction| of seeing his cherished idea of a direct wireless service between Australia and Great Britain and Australia and North America in successful operation,