Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-11-23
TALKS BETWEEN SHIPS
w. E. Curtis Describes Wireless Telegraphy's Great Strides.
THE BEST TESTS MADE AT NIGHT
Messages Heard 1,O6O Miles During Voyage of the Presidents Cruiser From New Orleans to Washington. Navy Department Experimenting
 With All systems Except Marcont's.

From New Orleans to Washington.
 Navy Department Experimenting
 With All systems Except Marcont's.
 Doubtless everybody has read the re- markable stories that have been pub hshed concerning the conversations that were kept up between the cruisers of Admiral Brownson's fleet and the wireless telegraph stations on shore during the presidents recent trip from New Orleans to Washington, writes l William E. Curtis, the Chicago Record Herald's Washington correspondent. It was altogether the most successful and satisfactory test of this mysterious method of communication that has ever been made and demonstrated its value to the naval service and to the mer- chant marine. Only few days after, when Admiral Evans was on his way to New York with the North Atlantic squadron, the officials at the navy de- pertinent remembered something they
 
 ' up by the wireless apparatus at the l Washington navy yard when he was 200 miles away and sailing northward of the coast of Maryland. He answer ed promptly. and conversation last ing more than half an hour was car ried on, in which every message was received and every word was under stood on both sides
 Nor was there any difficulty in find ing him. The operator at the navy yard touched his key and called for the bat tleship Maine just as one might shout from window at a crowd of men in the street or bird might cry to its mate. I do not know how 1t was done. It is difficult for a layman to under stand the mysteries of electricity. The i operator was in q coop at the navy yard, Admiral Evans was on the high seas, but the operator on the deck of the Maine heard the call the moment it was uttered and sent down to the ad- | miraPs cabin to tell Fighting Bob" that the navy department wanted to { talk to him at the telephone. for it was merely telephonic message, carried by invisible wings across the sand hills of Maryland, Chesapeake bay, the east i ern shore and sixty or seventy miles of salty ocean. If Galilei had done that in the fifteenth century, what might his fate have been?
 | But the tests during the presidents 1 voyage were even more remarkable. The wireless instrument on the flag ship West Virginia was in continuous communication with the other vessels of the fleet and with the shore stations | all the way from New Orleans to Nor folk, and one night, with the flagship { 225 miles west of Key West, the con versation between its operator and the i other vessels of the fleet was read at the navy yard in Washington just as | plainly as if 1t were going on in the 1 next room. There could be no mistake, for the messages have since been com pared and verified. That conversation was heard at distance of 1,050 stat. ute miles through the air, over land as we'll as sea, and 1t was only few sec onds passing the Piedmont country and through all of the south Atlantic states. The New York navy yard caught one message. and the De Forest station on Manhattan Beach caught an other. t These remarkable tests are all made at night. Wireless telegraphy does mol work as we'll in the daytime as 1t does after dark. and ordinarily long dis tanced messages can be read at night only. Experience shows that the range at night is three times as long as that during the day because of reasons mol yet definitely determined. The expla nation generally accepted is that thu rays of the sun ionize the atmosphere That is a new word-"ionize"- hai been built to describe certain meteoro logical conditions under which thu atoms of atmosphere are more widely separated than usual or are less 1T sympathy. which causes a species oi lnduction-that Is (to make 1t plainerl the atmosphere is not so good a con ductor of electric currents while th' sun Is shining through it as it Is aftel dark. It loses certain qualities requir ed for long range messages and ab sorbs the electric fluid. The expert admit that this Is veTy unsatisfactorl explanation. but 1t is the best one they have at present. However. facts ar' facts, and wireless telegraphy does no carry it's messages SO far or so dis tinctly during the day as 1t does a night.
 The longest distance over which [ wireless message was ever heard by tn operators of the navy department wa on the night of Oct 31. when Manhat tan Beach station on Long Island hear the operator at San Juan. Porto Rico 1900 miles away. The operator at Co lon. on the isthmus of Panama. a fev days ago read messages passing be tween the operator at Key West am the steamer Concho of the Mallory line running between Galveston and New