The sun., 1919-03-30

w 7 1hc I1hN we snouid nave nad
" the wireless telephone in its
present development without
the urge Of armed conflict Is of course
debatable. But 1t Is an undeniable fact
that American genius and coIlabora-
ton brought about by the world war
have given US wireless telephony in a
state to-day that presages still more
wonderful things in the near future.
The wireless telephone has been
promised Off and on for a number Of
years, and strictly speaking we have
had this means OF vocal intercourse in
q laboratory way, potentially practical
Bile. for some time. but there were
stumbling locks In the goal to robust
ness of apparatus, reliability of per-
formance and reciprocal effectiveness
between transmitting and receiving
stations that halted commercial rec
ignition. One by one these technical
obstacles have been lodged or sur
mounted, and to-day instead OF being
able to talk without wires for only a
fsw miles we are actually spanning an
atmospheric gap measured by the
bosom OF the broad Atlantic.
Lighting the Way TO Success.
And what has really constituted the
foundation stone OF this amazing
achievement? What particular effort
Of American enterprise opened the
vista of this possibility? 1t was moth
ing more pretentious to the casual eye
han a glowing inoandescent lamp OF a
size akin to those which have become
q commonplace in the household! And
this particular electric light was the
product Of DIR. Lee dc Forest We
must tell something of the story of
this little apparatus in order that the
layrnan, can again grasp the fact that
astonishingly big things so often grow
out Of strangely small ones.
In January OF 1915 transcontinental
telephoning by wire was inaugurated.
Tho experts of the American Tele-
phone and Telegraph Company thus
brought to a climax their varied labors
and showed how the extremely feeble
vocal waves starting at the distant
transmitter could Be reinvigorated
from time to time and reproduce the
initial speech after travelling the long
wire route Of quite 1900 miles. Nu-
merous electrical features contributed
to this realization, but probably none
Of them played a more vital part in
that success In the long distance'trans-
mission of speech than the De Forest
audion amplifier.
For the better part of two decades
previously telephone engineers had
striven to find an apparatus which
would pick up surely arriving speech
waves, and then, with new strength
send them forward on their next LAP
toward the remote goal. The problem
was a sort of vocal relay race, and tc
be of real service 1t was necessary that
the incoming message should be faith
fully caught and sent forward withou,
distortion.
a small army OF inventors and tele-
phone engineers contended with this
bAt;kis puzzle. Curiousiy we'll ,righ a.
those men sought to modify or tc
adapt we'll known features OF the tele-
phone-Prof NJ. !. Pupin being the one
conspicuous exception. Prof. Pupir
gave the world his inductance coils
but these could not be used CONNER
clally for transcontinental telephony
simply because Of their staggering cost
DIR. De Forests Audion.
Work in the field OF wireless teleg
raphy, strange as 1t may seem, &C
tually blazed the way for the wire
telephone which brought New Yori
and San Francisco within vocal range
of each other. In 1909 DR.. Lee d.
Forest. then starting his pioneer ex
periments with wireless detectors. ap
paratus which would pick up the faint
est of arriving Hertzian waves, discov
cred that a heated gas was affected BY
such waves and would constitute {
new detective agent for use In rad!t
telegraphy. Here was a medium tina
proved to be exquisitively sensitive Il
oncoming impulses, and because thu
gas was imponderable It faithfully re
produced the character of each wave
Indeed It was infinitely more respon
sive to these electrical disturbance
than any previously known wireless
receiver.
DR.. do Forest called his little ap
paratus ''audion" Because the in
candescent lamp which he employees
made audible the action OF the ion
ue heated gas which surrounded tn
incandescent flament.
Woriking tirelessly 70 improve hi