Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1911-05-03
WONDERS OF THE ACE
Remarkable Inventions Not Dreamed
of a Quarter Century Ago.
THE WIRELESS TELEPHONE.
Advancement Made i'm Telegraph
and Telephone Service Without
Wires a Surprise Even to
Scientists.

anu lClcpiIOuC oCTSiNC "ithout
Wires a Surprise Even to
Scientists.
Truth is stranger than fiction.
Also there are more things in heaven
and on earth than are dreamt of in
your philosophy. Bellamy put all
his dreams into Looking Back
ward" He thought the acme of CT
vilization would be reached when
we with the aid of wires could hear
the sermon or concert given at
hall in the other end of town with
out leaving our homes. Already we
have gone far beyond that. Caruso's
voice in song is carried to us by vic
trola or graphophone, and telegraph
messages are transmitted thousands
of miles across the Atlantic without
the aid of wires. More than that
these wireless waves may be and
have been used to transmit the
voice and even to propel cars weigh
ing tons.
If this taxes your credulity you
should have heard the recent lecture
before the New York Railway club
by DR.. Frederick H. Milliner, an
inventor in the service of the Union
Pacific, says the Dubuque Times
Journal. He has been working four
years on scheme for moving trains
by wireless and eliminating both
telegraph and telephone operators,
except at the dispatchers Office. He
was prepared to say as a result of
h ic aynnrinnnn re thof uyip fnIn-
phony from a moving train is more
than a practical probability, and
that within year or so from now it
will be feature of the daily opera
ton of trains on the Union Pacific.
Saving one fruit train from freezing
will pay for practically the cost Of
the whole installation. More than
that, however, it will make travel
by rail even safer than it is now on
the safest of railroads. With prop
erly constructed wireless stations
there is no chance of failure. There
will be no more trouble with the
block signals, no delays or annoy
ances because wires have been blown
down by storms, or anything of that
sort.
Two of these wireless stations
will be established soon, one at Sid
ney, Neb., and the other at Chey-
enne, Wyo., 1913 miles apart, where |
the line is a single track. He ex-
poets to keep up a communication |
with moving trains between these
two stations and others that are to
be established. These wireless sta
tons will be close to the train dis
patchers' offices, so that communi-
cation may be established quickly |
whenever it is necessary. He has dis
covered through his experiments
that wireless waves will follow the
direction of the rails farther than
In any other direction, and more
closely 1t is well known that they
will follow a stream of water or
even treeless plain, and that these
waves work better in stormy wealth
err than when the skies are clear.
The wireless telephone he has de-
vised and has been using in Omaha
is so powerful that messages may
be received from a considerable dis
lance simply by attaching the receiv-
ing apparatus to an ordinary UNI
brella which is held over the head
of the person who gets the message.
He may be on top of moving train
or walking about the yards. The
tones of the human voice are repro
duced perfectly-far better than by
ordinary telephone. The ordinary
"head set" is used by the
person receiving. The ribs of the
correspond to the antennae
or aerials.
During his Investigations in wire
less telephony he made a thorough
study of what is called the "speak-
ing arcs" in connection with the
generators capable of producing
currents of as high as 350,oVO alter
nations per second. AS a result OF
these researches he developed a |
bank of six arc lights, which he
steal sounds when persons spoke or
instruments were played IN
to the telephone transmitter. AT the
land show in Omaha recently he
lighted these arcs first by wireless.
Some of them he placed in a re-
flector of a locomotive headlight
This greatly increased the range or
distance through which they could
be heard. This speaking arc,
however, seems destined to be moth
ing more than a scientific toy.
Another thing he did in the
course of his research work was TO
take an electric truck weighing
$500 pounds and run 1t around the
shop yards at Omaha by wireless
waves. The car was equipped with
an aerial, and he ran 1T at four dl1-
ferent speeds, forward or back, un-