The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1909-06-23
WIRELESS
TELEPHONE
Despite Failure in Navy the
Army VIII Make Other
Trials Of Invention.

w AOt1lNGlON, June Ao.-LA'Sh
sivn experiments are to be made by
the army this summer with wireless
telephony, especially with view to
the utilization of the newest means of
communication in time of war. The
Signal Corps will have the tests in
charge, and they are to be conducted
under the most trying conditions. 1t
the wireless telephone can be made
valuable adjunct to the wireless tel
egraph, although it is not believed
that its field of usefulness will ever
be so great
The War Department decided upon
| demonstrating the value of the wire
less telephone in the face of the decla-
ration of the Navy Department that
the system was of no practical worth
The battleship fleet in it's trip around
the world was equipped with wireless
telephones. The naval authorities eX-
pected the telephone would supercede
the telegraph and the flag signals in
conveying orders from the flagship TO
the vessels in hes train, but the tel
ephone did not come up to the eX-
pectations. The Hertzain waves from
the wireless telegraph instruments on
the fleet, together with the interior
ence of other vagrant wireless waves,
rendered the telephone almost value
less. Practically all the battleships
now are stripped of the wireless tele-
phone apparatus.
The Signal Corps is convinced that
the fault lay in the system employed,
and that the principle is not involved
in the failure. The fact that the
French Navy is reported to me en-
ploying wireless telephones with COM
plete success, and has maintained
conversations between warships 100
miles apart strengthens the conviction
that the science of hurting words
through the air is in it's infancy. The
army is setting out to prove its con-
tentions.
In preparation for it's tests, the Sig
nal Corps is erecting a specially con.
structed mast on the roof of the Mills
Building, an adjunct of the Navy and
War Departments. Another mast will
be erected at Fort Meyer and the ex-
periments will be conducted, primar-
ly, between these two points, a dis
lance of five miles.
The country over which the tele-
phonic waves will be sent is of most
difficult nature, and is believed to be
of such a character as to insure the
severest conditions. In the first place,
bluffs and hills intervene and a bar
rier of heavy woods lies between the
two points, Then there is a forest of
wireless masts, with their finger like
wires in the immediate neighborhood
of the Washington end of the trial
route.
Just as soon as the tests are stab
lished satisfactorily over the five-mile
course, the apparatus will be taken
further out until the limit of communi-
cation is reached. This will be ac-
complished by means of portable ap-
paratus. Special efforts are being
made to hit upon batteries that will
give maximum of power while light
enough and sufficiently compact to
permit of easy carriage.
The wireless telephone, it is believ-
ed. will solve the problem of commune
cation between dirigible balloons and
the earth. While tests have been
made by the Signal Corps with wire
less telegraph apparatus ma balloon,
they have not been satisfactory. 1t
is possible to receive messages, but
the powerful sparks generated in send
ing a message procludes the use of
wireless from balloon car, because of
the danger of exploding the free gas
that envelopes the bag