Arizona republican., 1904-02-17
WIRELESS TELEeRAeHY.
Portable Plant Being Planned for the
 Army.

As a result of experiments made by | the signal corps of the United States army with wireless telegraphy, the prediction now is made that in the next war this system of communication will be utilized to keep the advance column of an army in touch with its base. Under the direction of Captain Leon ard D. Wildman, the signal corps Is at present conducting elaborate exper'- ments with wireless telegraphy be- tween Fort Schuyler on Throg's Neck, | in Westchester. and Fort Wright, on Fishers island. near New London, Conn No startling success have at tended these experimental but they have enabled Captain Wildman to for mulate plans for a portable wireless | telegraph apparatus that will trans init messages overland with absolute certainty for a distance of forty or fif- ty miles, and this is all the army needs.
 The advantage that such an appara- | tus would give to an army are many
 Wires are always more or less at the marco of the enemy it being compara- lively easy for a scouting party to cut | them Even when the wires are not likely to be tempered with much time | is lost and much labor involved if they are strung on poles, while if the naked wire is laid on the ground experianca has proved that it always is likely to be broken in the confusion of horses and wagons that invariably attend an army's advance. All these disadvantages would be | overcome by a portable wireless ap- paratus, which would be of incalcul- | able service to a scouting party sent to report on the situation of the enc | my. Army officers say that system that would work fifty miles would an- swer every purpose for in modern warfare an army would seldom be more than that distance from its base of supplies, and in exceptional cases an intermediate wireless station could be established to pass the mes sage on.
 | IL Is understood that the portable system Captain Wildman expects to invent will have kites for its chief feature. He has not yet had time to make experiments along the lines he | has mapped out But there is sad to be no doubt in his mind that the system will be a success.
 | The government has been experi- menting with wireless telegraphy Tor five years. Before Marconi came here !
 less messages between Fire island and the Fire island lightship, distance of
 fifteen miles but the outbreak of
 the war with Spain put stop to fur ther experiments for the time being,
 and it was not until 1900 that Captain 1 Wildman began experiments in the vicinity of San Francisco.
 | Before the captain could make much | Drogress. however, he was ordered to
 the Philippines. and as the signal corps had about all it could attend to in es- l tablishing lines of communication for the army in those islands its wireless telegraph work was again suspended. But as soon as it's task in the Philip pines had been finished, the signal
 corps turned it's attention to the prob lem of establishing wireless communal
 cation between Cape Nome and St
 Michaels, Alaska
 Last June Captain Wildman took up
 the work of experimenting on Long Is-
 land sound, as ,has been more or less
 steadily at it ever since. Fort Schuyler
 and Fort Wright are about 100 miles
 apart. They are separated by the wat
 CT of the sound and about fifteen miles of land that juts out from Long Island.
 In his experiments between those
  siders to be the most meritorious feat ures of the Allgemeine-G -Gesellschaf
 system. under which name all the German patents are comprised: The Lodge Muirhead, or English system,
 and the various American systems. AS the plant now stands, however, 1t IS indebted chiefly to the ideas of the American inventor. De Forrest.
 Despite the fact that fifty messages
 have been sent from Fort Wright 70
 Fort Schuyler, the experiments have left much to be desired, for the reason
 that the working of the line has been
 constantly interferred with by the si2; other wireless experimental stations Tn the vicinity of this city owned by
 private companies. Sometimes when Fort Schuyler has been trying to re- ceive a message from Fort Wright It has also recei1Nd messages from ali
 six of the private stations, the result
 being a hopeless tumble. So far noth- | ing has been devised that will enable
 a receiving station to get the message
 exclusively intended for it. and no
 others. and unless the etheric wave
 that is originated at the transmitting
 station with which it is in correspond-
 ence differs greatly in character with
 those of all other stations in the vicin- 
 ity it is impossible to distinguish the
 signals of it's corresponding station
 from the mass.
 Captain Wildman is going to turn
 his attention to the problem of having his stations originate waves sufficient
 ly different in character from the
 others in this vicinity to enable him to
 detect his own signals. In accordance
 with the electrical discharge from the transmitting pole unduiations of ether
 proceed thence in all directions and If the captain, for example. can originate a wave 1000 feet in length, while those
 originated by the neighboring stations
 are 1000 feet in length he will exper =
 fence no difficulty in making his mes-
 sages prevail over the others But { always to originate waves uniform in character is an exteremly difhcult , thing to do, for connected with the transmitting plant are some half l dozen features that are variable and : if any one of these is out of propor-