Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1913-02-25
FINISHING TOUCHES
FOR THE WIRELESS

Many needs of wireless now seem
about to be filled. 1t has been
study of great promise, who in spite
Of his wonders must have much
training to give a mans prime SER
vice.
Coming first is a call bell. The call
now is family clicking in telephone
receiver and night and day operators
have to sit in the wireless stations or
cabins, their telephone receivers
clamped to their ears, waiting for a
warning. Sleep, or a rest may mean
vital message lost London scien-
lists recently discussed devices for a
reliable alarm and the announcement
was made that the great Marconi
thinks he has a practical device.
While the wireless current Is so
faint that it will not ring a bell, it
can be made to gently move the point
er of delicate instrument. Marconi's
idea is to have a long dash for the
signal call, which will move the deli
cate galvanometer, and If the current
is prolonged much beyond the ordin-
airy dashes used in telegraphing, the
galvanometer will ring an alarm bell.
But 1t will not ring during telegraph
message with dots and dashes of or
dinary length.
False alarms have been a serious
handicap. Stray electricity, such as
atmospheric discharges, might start
the bell. An operator listening at the
receiver soon learns to distinguish be-
tween signals from another station
and these strays. This new device has
succeeded fairly well in showing the
same discrimination.
A useful device would be a record,
ing apparatus, writing out the mes
sage in dots and dashes on a moving
strip Of paper, One device which is
too complicated uses a mirror on the
sensitive pointer, which flashes dots
and dashes Of light on a Photographic
film strip. The Marconi engineers
have another solution they are now
perfecting.
Once these two devices are practic
al, there may come wireless receiving
stations without operators, the only
thing to stand in the way at all being
the regulating Of the apparatus. Ever
that will be conquered by little per
fections and for that matter, such 4
wireless receiving station would be
built to receive messages from just
one station For instance, lonely
mining camp up in the mountains
which could not afford to pay opera
tors, might have a receiver station t
obtain news and orders A centra
| sending station in sparsely settled
sections might send out daily news re-
port, much the same as the stock tick.
ers work now.
Wireless telephony is a fayorite
problem for engineers today. Scores
of solutions have appeared, but the!
all seem to be limited to short dis
tances, few hundred miles at best
An English wireless engineer, Capt
II. R. Sankey, has little faith in the
future of wireless telephony, for he
says that the easier wireless teleph
ony is made technically, the worse
1t will be for its commercial use
for once 1t is easy there will be SC
many cross currents Of talking shoot,
ing around in every direction thai
nobody could hear anything connect
edly
So wireless telephony has two high
hurdles to jump, one the perfection
Of the apparatus, and the other some
scheme for getting the talk to the
right place without interference from
others talks, The difficulty in get.
ting the efficient machine is easy ia
understand Wireless telegraphy does
not use simple currents Of electricity
to make dots and dashes, but each dot
or dash is made up Of an enormously
rapid series Of sparks, say at the rate
Of 5000 a second. But a steady cur
rent is needed to send human voice
vibrations over the WIRE or at least
series of sparks which run at the
rate of over 10000 a second, and SC
are steady enough In practice 81
the job is to send wireless in either
a steady spark or a spark which vi.
brates at over 10000 times a second
Various ways Of doing this are used in
existing wireless telephone patterns
This will be accomplished salts
factorily one of these days. Berthen.
OF Of France thinks he has It now
Then will come the big hurdle, how
to send each talk to the proper ear
Tuning the sending and receiving in.
struments together will possibly do