The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-02-05
NARCON| STOCKHOLDERS
WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY PROVED
A GOOD THING.
1t is a Success Only it Won't Work.
At Least Not When Anyone is Look
ing.

hlnau.
j. tletts and A. Gray are the Mar
conf experts sent here soon after the
kaimuR balloon experiments had de-
mostrated that the system was a sue
cess, only it wouldn't work. Gray is
the man who found out that the trou-
bic with the Kaimuk station was that
the ground wire from the instrument
on the pole went down into dry earth
instead Of wet and hence the circuit
was not completed.
Just why Pletts and Gray should
come to Honolulu, leaving the stations
on the other islands unnamed by eX-
perts, just at a time when according
to announcements everything is ready
for the operation of the system, it is
hard to guess. However it is entirely
in keeping with the past practice of
the manipulators of the system, never
to have stations at both ends of the
system, manned at the same time.
1t has been announced several times
that messages have been transmitted
from island to island, and exchanged
between one island and another. But
1t was always apparently when nobody
was looking. For as soon as public at
tention was called to it, the system quit
instantly, went on a strike at once.
After each discovery that a message
had gone through clandestinly, il was
ulStpNeIeu lndl lle reason messages
could not be gotten through while peo-
pie We're looking, was that some pole
or station was in the wrong place, or
that the expert was not at the station
at the other end when he ought to have
been.
Still the history of wireless telegra-
ply in Hawaii is entertaining. There
are two branches of this history. one
branch relates to poles, and stations,
n M inc tfsttr MT nd DIV nd
things like that, incidentally including
balloons. The other relates to stock
holders, and delinquent assessments,
and changes in the directory, and in
cidcntally to some messages that didn't
need a wireless system TO get from the
sender to the receiver
About year ago it was announced
that everything was ready, and that
a grand public exhibition of the system
would be given and incidentally the
right to send the first message would
be auctioned off. Messages were to
be exchanged between the capitol and
Kaimuki station. Instruments were
installed on the flag pole of the capitol
and connected by wire with a Morse
instrument on the ground. Quite a
crowd gathered to see it. No public
explanation of how the system worked,
was made, but it was said it did work.
Messages said to have been received
from Kaimuki were read to the effect
that Mr.. Gear found it hot out at ka-
imuki and was making some inquiries
about beer. 1t is forgotten now wheth-
er it was George d. or a. V. Gear who
made the inquiries. At any rate the
messages had such an air of verismili-
tude that the crowd accepted them as
genuine, and on the strength of this
belief, the auctioneer who had paid 500
for the privilege of auctioning off the
right to the first message, succeeded in
raising the bids to $50. At that figure
it was knocked down.
Then there were months of waiting
for chance to send that first mes
sage. Several times 1t was announced
that everything was almost in readl-
ness for the beginning of the operation
of the system. In fact several times
it was announced that messages had
actually been transmitted. Some of the
newspapers began to get chary of
making these unfultilled announce
ments and began to hedge by saying
that the management of the company
announced etc.
After poles and stations on the other
islands had been shifted from one place
to another until large areas must have
looked like the summer tour of a three
tent circus, it was discovered that
everything worked except the station
at Kaimuki. The instrument there was
either too high or too low. A balloon
was constructed for the purpose of de-
termining the exact height necessary.
But the balloon was like the inStru-
ment, it wouldn't work. An unsuc-
cessful attempt was made to initiate
it, but only resulted in burning il.
Then an appeal was made to Mar
conf, and Gray was sent. He made the
discovery about the ground wire going
into dry instead of moist earth, and
the station was shifted to the other
side of Diamond Head. Then there
was another period Of readjusting the
stations on the other islands. A month
or so ago it was announced that this
was completed, and that Manager Cross
would go to Labaina, Expert Gray to
Mahukona and Expert Hobbs would
run the Diamond Head station and
operations would commence. Cross did
go to Lahaina. Cray and Pletts went
somewhere across the channel All the
stations on Maui we're said 10 work
beautifully, and efforts We're MADE 10
communicate with Honolulu
But Expert Hobbs who was sched-
uled to be at the Diamond Head sta
ton al this time, never went near
there. Just why he didn't, no one
seems to be able to find out. Some
say Gray told him not t. go, and there
the experts whereby those who came
here first won't work in harmony with
the second instalment, and neither with
Manager Cross.
At any rate when Cross couldn't get
into communication with Hobbs he
came back from Lahaina and finding
that Hobbs had not been TO the Dia-
mond Head station he went there him
self. But then he couldn't get COM
munication from Maui where Gray and
Pletts We're.
If Cross could only be at both ends
of the line at once, perhaps the system
would work. 1t has since been said
that Molokai has been heard FROM
and the celebrated Henry Waterhouse
& Co., message reached Maui, but bear
ing very much of the appearance of a
Shanghai cable dispatch relating to
things i'm Picking.
But while the poles and stations We're
doing their dance all over the islands,
there was a little hot foot" being done
among the stockholders 1t costs mo-
ney TO make balloons to burn, and
move stations from one hill to another,