The Democratic banner. (Mt. Vernon, Ohio) 1898-192?, 1914-05-12
RADIO
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Time Signals Between Paris
And U. S.
Most Successful After Re.
peated Experiments
EffeI ! Tower Station Talks
With Arlington, Va.


al observatory, in this city. after re-
peated experiments, has been success
full in receiving and transmitting by
wireless, time signals between Paris
and Washington, for longitudinal de-
termination The signals came to and
were sent from the great wireless sta
tion on the Eiffel tower and the Ar
lington station, across the Potomac
from this city.
For several years the naval observa-
tory here and the observatory at Paris
had been exchanging signals every day,
by wireless, in an effort to determine
the difference of longitude between the
two places and the velocity through
space of radio signals.
On account of the interference of
other radio stations, but chiefly to dis
charges of atmospheric electricity,
there had not been a great deal of sue
ces until Friday night of last week,
when the beats of the Paris clock, as
transmitted by radio signals, were
compared with the observatory clock
in Washington for several minutes b!
the method of condolences.
The time of year when atmospheric
conditions most favor radio work is
rapidly approaching, and it is planned
to carry the experiments to a finality.
1t is said that the American naval
observatory was the first in the world
to have its time signals regularly trans
mitted by radio telegraphy to ships a.
sea, enabling them to check their
chronometers and thus the more ac-
curately fix their longitude, and it al
so has sent signals in this way to Ell
able surveying parties under the hy
geographic Office to determine the long
itude of points which they have used
as bases
1t has been ascertained that radio
signals travel through space at APP
proximately the velocity of light, 1885,
900 miles "a second, but that there is
very slight loss of time, a. small frac-
tioual part of second, in starting the
signal on its journey at one end of
the line, and in receiving it at the
other.
The American naval observatory in
1912 began to consider this loss with a
view to ascertaining how to eliminate
or accurately measure it, when the
word came that the problem had been
solved by the French by the method
known as condolences. Then it was
that the heads of the navy department
here arranged with the French govern
ment for the exchange of signals be-
tween Eiffel tower and Arlington, so
that the problem and it's solution might
be studied at leisure
The American navy department
would have been content if given sim
ply the privilege of taking its own as
Economical observations in Paris and
using the Eiffel tower station for the
sending OF signals but the interest of
the French government was so great
last spring it sent five of its leading
experts to this country to study the
problem and its solution while the
American government sent experts to
Paris for similar purpose.
These Investigations promptly re-
suited in the agreement that there
should be French and an American
commission working side by side but
independently, each commission having
representatives both in Paris and in
Washington, the parties to exchange
places, the men in Paris coming to
Washington and those in Washington
going to Paris, when one half of the
observations and exchanges of signals
had been made and in their new sta
tions making the other half
The interval since April, 1918, has
been spent in getting ready for the
work, and, as said, the first entirely
satisfactory exchange of signals hav-
ing been made last Friday night.
Special mechanism has been provid-
ed for the American parties, designed
to eliminate as far as possible all in
strumental and personal mistakes. The
exchange of stations is intended to
carry these eliminations still further
along. Two instrument houses, iden-
tical in design, have been built at the
observatory here, one for the French
and the other for the American party.
Four radio experts were assigned from
the fleet to the naval observatory to
get the experience necessary to enable
them to compare the observatory
clocks, $500 miles apart, and to aid in
making preparations or the expert
ments in other ways Two officers with
experience in photographic surveying
were also detailed to join the astrono-
mical staff for the purpose of the in