The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1905-12-06

y
markable stories that have been pub
lished 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
William e. Curtis, the Chicago Record
Herald's Washington correspondent. 1t
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 a few days after,
when Admiral Evans was on his way
TO New York with the North Atlantic
squadron, the officials at the navy de-
partment remembered something they
wanted to ask him. They called him
up by the wireless apparatus at the
Washington navy yard when he was
200 miles away and sailing northward
off the coast of Maryland. He answer
ed promptly, and q 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 a window at a crowd of men in
the street or a bird might cry to its
mate. l do not know how it was done
1t is difficult for q layman to under
stand the mysteries of electricity. The
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
miraHs cabin to tell Fighting Bob"
that the navy department wanted to
talk to him at the telephone, for it was
merely a telephone message, carried
by invisible wings across the sand hills
of Maryland, Chesapeake bay, the east
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
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
other vessels of the feet was read at
the navy yard in Washington just as
plainly as if il were going on in the
next room. There could be no mistake,
for the messages have since been COM
pared and verified. That conversation
was heard at a distance of 1850 stat
ute miles through the air, over land as
well as sea, and it 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.
These remarkable tests are all made
at night. Wireless telegraphy does not
work as we'll in the daytime as it 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 not
yet definitely determined. The expla-
nation generally accepted is that the
rays of the sun ionize the atmosphere.
That is a new 'ionize"-and has
been built to describe certain meteOro-
logical conditions under which the
atoms of atmosphere are more widely