Radio Telephone Exchanges

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 4, 7 August 1931, Page 5

Radio Telephone Exchanges

A Practical Possibility HE operation of an automatic wireless telephone exchange connecting a city with its various country towns, ur city with city, is not only possible, but is likely to be an accomplished fact in the near future. At the present time a series of experiments are being carried out by the Marchese Marconi, world-famous inventor, in automatic radio telephony. Further experiments on a _ larger scale will shortly be conducted by connecting the telephone networks’ of Rome and Cagliari, the capital of ‘Sardinia, by two powerful wireless stations. It will then be possible for a person in Rome to dial a number din Cagliari, 250 miles away. The impulses will be transmitted across the sea by short-wave wireléss in a fashion similar to that in which the Marchese Marconi switched on the lights of the Sydney Radio Bxhibition in March of last year from his yacht at Genoa. Once the connection has been established, conversation will be carried on by ordinary wireless telephone and will be secret, as the system is based on many superimposed wireless waves which cannot be intercepted. It is interesting to recall that, attend ing the success of Marconi causing 2 switch to be closed at the Sydney Town Hall which released approximately..100 h.p. of electrical energy and electrically illuminated the Town Hall with 2800 electric bulbs, Mr. H. T. Wisk stated at the time :- "The control of mechanisms ‘suc as this at a distance by wireless has already been applied on a limited scale across relatively short distances, and the development of these principles will have many useful applications, and, ¥ think will eventually lead to the stadze where it will be possible in Sydney to operate an automatic telephone -exchange in London." While the application of the principles of distant control of automatic mechanisms has not yet reached the stage prophesied above, it is noteworthy that very definite progress in this direction is being made, as Marconi’s experiments recorded here bear evidence. From the first wireless telegraphy demonstration by Marconi in London in 1897, when communication was established over a distance of four miles, to the. transmission of the first signal across the Atlantic, represented but four years’ experiments. To-day with @ wealth of scientific wireless data available and research engineers throughout the world developing and applying that data, there is every reason to believe that the stage of advancement that Mr. Fisk predicts is likely to be accomplished in the very near future. Then may 8 telephone subscriber in a suburb of Sydney dial a London telephone number and speak with the same facility as he to-day enjoys with the local telephone service.