The star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1908-1909, 1909-02-01
CLOCK REGULATED
BY ELECTRIC WAVES.

A system by which a wireless teleg-
graphic apparatus may control from a
central station the clocks of d whole
city is now in use in Vienna, where il
was experimentally established three
years ago. A writer in Paris Cosmos
tells us tina the plan has succeeded
well, and we may probably expect to
see it adopted elsewhere, as it has OBJ
vious advantages. Says this writer:
"A Viennese, Frantz Morawitz, has
perfected a system of time distribution
to public clocks, based on the use of
electric waves. The clocks are aetuated
by any desired means; the electric
waves interfere each minute to set the
hands correctly.
Attempts made before this by vari-
Gus persons have failed, because of per-
turbations ~occasioned by strange waves,
by atmospheric discharges, for example.
THE Viennese inventor, to eliminate
these difficulties, conceived the idea of
placing the receiving clock in connec-
ton with the receiving antenna for only
a short interval-one second during each
minute. During ffty-nine seconds the
clock is isolated and remains unaffected
by the emission of waves. During the
IL otSOIld AiiO AAA5 PBN 1888
Ga radio-conductor %actuating an electro
magnetic arrangement is placed auto
m%atically in circuit with the antenna:
the wave sent out by the central clock
then ~disconnects the minute hand for
the following minute.
'If a foreign wave strikes the clock
at this moment no great harm is done;
the clock gains not more than one sec
o.aI and lie cot avaatlN AT tho following
minute.
"A central station vas installed in
1906 in the Electro-Technical Institute
of Vienna, and the municipal council
voted an appropriation of 5000 francs
$4,000. The waves sent out by the
| antenna are about 100 meters $500
feet) long and easily traverse by diff
fraction all the obstacles and %inequali-
ties of ground of a great city, gliding
around large metallic masses such as
the cupola of st. Charles's Church.
1.-TWO receiving clocks were set up
for the trials, one at Breitensee, the
other at the Sienvens-Schuckert fac
tories on the Praterquai, with receiv-
ing antenna about twenty meters
(sixty-six feet) in height.
During the storm that ragged over
Vienna, July II, 1907, with e%xtraor-
binary violence, the system was not at
all impaired. Despite the atmospheric
discharges, one of which struck the
post of the transmitting antenna (and
escaped to earth across the lightning
guard, and despite the torrential rain
the clocks maintained their rate of
progress exactly.
The regulating clock of the central
station is an electric pendulum clock
with mercury contacts. which at the
desired moment discharges into the
transmitting antenna the electric
energy accumulated in a battery of 10O
Leyden Jars.
Such an installation is very inter
esting; it may furnish the exact time,
without great cost, to an unlimited
number of mechanical clocks, set up
not only within the limits of a great
city, but even throughout an entire
province, and in any case it makes
superfuous the complicated and ex-
pensive network of electric conductors
necessitated by other systems of cleo
trio time-distribution.'