The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1902-05-31
ROUND THE WORLD
POSSIBILITIES OF WIRELESS
TELEGRAPHY
Distance from California to Hawaii the
Longest Single Jump in a Chain Of
Calculations.

Although the worlds most recent
| great invention, wireless telegraphy, is
! still working within avowed limitations
and has not yet accomplished the feat
of sending ineligible messages quite
! across the Atlantic, it has proved prac-
! ticable over comparatively short dis
| tances, and the formation in this coun-
! try of a company for it's exploitation, as
! recently announced, is by no means a
! chimerical scheme. The system has
! proved it's original claim to be exceed
| ingly useful over short distances and
| especially as means of interinsular
communication, between ships at sea
and between vessels and the shore, so
| the proclaimed purpose of this COM
! pany to at first turn its attention to
| the transmitting of messages between
| the United States and the island pos
| sessions of this country is not only fea-
sible, but quite reasonable. the first
commercial stations of this company,
with its capital OF $4,000 600 will be es-
tablished between the United States
and Cuba, and it is expected that Flori-
da and Havana will be connected by
wireless telegraphy before June l.
If this scheme as outlined is success
fully carried out, the initial steps will
have been taken toward making the
United States not only dominant, but
a world factor in the dissemination of
news by the new system. Situated as it
is, with a vast coast line on either
ocean, our country occupies a geOgraph-
ical position that enables it to reach
out right and left and eventually en-
brace the globe.
On the Atlantic coast of the United
States a vast archipelago, composed of
hundreds of Gays and islands, extends
from near Florida to the north coast of
South America, forming a series of
"steIping stones between the two
great continents of the western hemi-
sphere. The distances between them
vary, but there are no two contiguous
island more than 100 miles apart. Less
than a hundred miles separate Key
West and Havana, from which latter
point messages can be flashed to the
Isle of Pines, another hundred miles, or
by land and submarine line via Glen
fuegos to Santiago, whence Kingston,
Jamaica, and Jeremie, Haiti, are about
equi-distant, or within $50 miles From
Jamaica to either Nicaragua or Panama
is a StraightWay distance of 600 miles,
400 to Cartagena and 700 to Caracas, in
Venezuela, so that the South American
continent could be reached without any
trouble by means of apparatus al pres
ent employed.
If a different direction is taken and
island between Cuba and Trinidad, near
the mouth of the OrinocO, it will be
found that, after the channels separat-
ing Cuba and Haiti and Santa Domingo
and Porto Rico are crossed, the Isles OF
the Virgins and Lesser Antilles lie less
than an average of thirty miles apart,
with the exception of the last stretch
between Grenada and Tobago or Trim
dad Submarine cables connect all
Cl q
are so high as to be almost prohibitive
to ordinary traffic. After South Amer
lea is reached all the capitals of that
continent can be communicated with by
flashes from the high peaks of the An
des or from projecting points of the
coast line all the way from Panama to
Patagonia. Nor need the messages
stop at South America, for between
Pernambuco, in Brazil, and Sierra
Leone, on the west coast of Africa, is a
stretch of ocean only two-thirds the
width of that which lies between Ire
land and Newfoundland, so that the
two continents can easily be united by
this southern route via the West Indies
and the northeast coast of South Amer
lea Thence the mysterious flashes
could be sent around the dark CONT
nent, either northward to Spain, the
Mediterranean coast and the Red sea
to the Indian ocean and places beyond,
or southwark TO Cape Town and up the
eastern coast of Africa. By either
route India and China could be reached,
and eventually our oriental possessions
in the Philippines.
Reaching westward from the coast of
California, a distance of 2100 miles
must be covered before first land is
reached in our colonial possession of
Hawaii, or the Sandwich Island group,
beyond which, all of 1000 miles farther,
lies Wake Island, a minute speck on the
Pacific Ocean hardly more than suffice
ing for the erection of telegraph sta
ton From Wake it is 1900 miles more
to Guam, and l, $40 from Guam to the
Island of LuZOn in the Philippines. A
short distance separates the east coast
of Luzon and Manila, whence cOmmu-
nicatiOn may be established with Hong |
kong, in China, $50 miles away. In this
manner the distance between California .
and the Philippines may be covered, F.
provided the long spaces of 1000 miles F..
or so can be overcome, and cOmmunica- I.
ton established around the globe by
means of the land stations in Asia, At !
RIGA and Europe.
Signor Marconi claims to have re-
ceived transoceanic signals from a
point 1900 miles distant, which slightly !
exceeds the distance between San Fran
cisco and Hawaii, and may certainly be |
taken as the present extreme limit, |
However 1t is announced that Hawaii |
and the United States will have cable |
connections by the end of this year, and |
the"Wireless" may serve a temporary /
use, If nothing more, while maintaining |
communications between points at less
er distances apart.
At all events there is a future for the J
system, though ii may be many years
before it supersedes the cables even If
1t should ever become their formidable
rival. 1t is yet in its infancy, so to
speak as only six years have passed
since the longest distance a message
could be transmitted by the wireless
was two miles and but three years since