Omaha daily bee., 1899-05-12
MARCONTS COMING WONDER
All the World Agog Over the Development
of Wireless Telegraphy,
DOES IT FORESHADoW A REVOLUTION
speculations on the Possibility Of
success-Extent of Telephone Busi-
ness in the United states
The Greatest Heat.

Wireless telegraphy commands the ears of
abe world at the present time. Electricians
ana laymen are equally Interested in the ex-
periments going on. Like all electrical dis
coVerles, 1t 'excites much adverse comment
among experts, while the unlearned in the
science appear ready to believe all the
claims made by the supporters Of the Mar
conf system. This system involves the use
OF a vertical wire. Poles $50 feet high were
used In the Dover-Boulogne experiments.
Marconfs own belief is that with n parity
OF other conditions, poles twenty feet high
at the transmitter and receiver are sufficient
for transmitting the message over a dis
tance OF one mile, forty feet high for four
miles, eighty feet high for sixteen miles,
and ia feet for thirty-two miles. Added
height Of the vertical wire increases efficiency
and this Is why the poles in the Dover
Boulogne experiments we're $50 feet high.
Marconi says that poles are necessary when
there are obstacles such as hills, mountains
or large masses of metallic substances in
tervening between the sending and receiv-
ing points; at all events, the results Sc
cured have been better.
1t has been claimed that any man with a
receiver could interrupt space telegraphy
messages within n certain radius. This
Wouiu, vi course, make the system Nalue-
less, especially in military or naval opera
tions. Marconi asserts he b. a system of
syntonizing, or tuning, y, prevents mes
eages reaching any but. the receiver for
which they are intended. In other words, he
tunes the receiver to conform to the oscil-
lation of the waves or sparks
Thus, by knowing the tune of the receiver
and by altering the wave-length of the trans
mitter to conform, no other receiver in the
radius could take the message unless it was
syntonized to agree exactly with the first
receiver.
Poss.biIities of the Invention.
II the height of poles must be proportional
TO the distance a message is to be sent, 1t
IS evident the value Of the discovery Is
limited. Experiments made In Chicago
showed that distractions between the sender
and receiver rendered the invention use
less. The latest test made by Professor
Green at Notre Dame, Ind, was sue
cessful over a distance of three miles. The
wires were located on the tops Of two
church spires, and given unobstructed ac-
ton to the ether waves. This fact tends
to dispose of the claim that dispatches would
be sent across the Atlantic during the pro-
gress of the yacht race for the Americas
cup next fall. Commenting on this project,
the New York Times says:
at Is now proposed to set up a station at
Sandy Hook and to send the news Of the
cup race to another station near Water
vile, on the Irish coast, 5000 miles away.
If that experiment succeeds even moderately
well, il ineligible electric impulses are
transmitted between the old world and the
new, Marconi's wireless telegraph will take
its place among the great transforming in
ventions Of history. 1t may be we'll to add
that nothing so far accomplished by Mar
conf ~justifes confidence that the experiment
will succeed.
Theoretically the thing looks possible.
There is no known limit to the distance
to which an ether wave will travel. The
dimension CT the apparatus needed to
create the wave impulse may impose a
limit. Marconi uses a vertical conductor !
forty feet high for four miles, eighty feet
for sixteen miles and one hundred and fifty
feet for the thirty-mile stretch across the
channel. 1t is plain that If his experiments
in shortening the conductors do not succeed
ocean wireless telegraphy will not be real
lied.
What Success Means.
''1f he does succeed in sending a message
across the ocean without a wire his method
must come at once into universal use. There
will be a wonderful cheapening of tele-
graphy and an uncomfortable extension of
its use in common affairs. Five-cent mes
sages to Chicago and a satisfactory talk
with a friend at Manila for a dollar or so
ought to be easily possible. For private
messages, business communications and
press dispatches the use and development
OF the system would transcend the power of
the imagination to picture them forth. We
boast now that we have annihilated time
and space, but a father on the old New Eng
land farm and his son in Seattle are still
pretty widely separated by the prohibitory
cost of electric communication. Wireless
telegraphy would make them neighbor9-
perhaps by the use of their own private APP
paratus. All the nations of the earth would
be put upon terms of intimacy and men
would be stunned by the tremendous volume
of news and Information that would cease-
lessly poor in upon them. One of the most
interesting changes wrought by the inven-
tion would be the abolition Of the uneaCthly
aloofness of travellers by sea. Wireless tele-
graphy developed as we may expect it to
be develop would bring every ship on the
sea into daily and hourly communication
with the Maritime exchange. It is appall-
ing to think of this fearful multiplication
of the means OF sending from man to man
and from city to city and nation to nation
communications mostly of no consequence
whatever.
ANY scientist you meet will smile at
this picturing forth of the developments
of wireless telegraphy. Scientists are apt
to be incredulous. They see the obstacles.
The electricians ridicule the idea of a wire
less message to Ireland. But the telephone
had been in use as a toy for ten years in
Germany before Gray and Bell made 1t a
practical instrument. Years after the arc
light had been in use all over the world
It was still held that 1t would never be pos
sible to subdivide the current to permit OF
it's use for domestic purposes. The inven-
tion OF the incandescent lamp settled that.
Fifteen years ago two dozen Of the most
eminent electrical experts in this country
put their names to a circular affirming that
1t would not be possible to place electric
wires in underground conduits because of
induction and the interference of currents.
The history OF the locomotive and Of the
steamboat shows how foolish are the skep-
ties who with their puny powers attempt
TO set bounds to the accomplishment OF in
ventive genius. Already there is a hint that
by the use Of a syntonizing apparatus, that
is, OF a receiver that will respond only to a
wave impulse sent out from the transmitter
TO which 1t has been adjusted, Marconi may
be able to make a station in Chicago or