The Bolivar County Democrat., 1922-05-27

into general use for commercial pur-
poses The longest telephone cable
actually operating today is about loo
miles in extent. AS a matter OF fact
ordinary cable telephony has not yet
taken place between England and Hol-
land, although these two countries
have such intimate commercial rela-
tons that there can be no question
about the demand.
The trouble in underwater cable
telephony lies in the very pronounced
distortion which takes place after the
electrical waves, which are the equiv
alent of the vocal sounds, have passed
a few miles through the cable. Even
In the twentyodd miles between Eng
land and France it has been found
necessary to place on the ocean ped
special appliances for overcoming this
distortion. These appliances add con-
siderably to the expense and upkeep
of the circuit.
Now, it is a curious fact that, al
though an electrical oscillation pro-
jected through an under-sea cable be-
comes rapidly distorted, an electrical
wave radiated across the ether by
modern wireless apparatus retains ITS
original characteristics however great
the distance over which it may travel.
In wireless telephony we convert
The modulations Of human speech into
equivalent modulations of the cleo
trical waves, and radiate them through
the ether until they strike the aerial
wires Of a receiving apparatus. There
they are reconverted into sound waves
such as can be recognized by the hui
man ear. AS the ether Is so elastic
as to allow these electrical waves to
maintain their original form, the ques-
ton of reception is little more than
that of magnifying the incoming sig
mails.
Wireless speech has already taken
place across the North Atlantic ocean,
but the apparatus employed was OF
an experimental, rather than a COM
mercial character, and therefore de-
yelopment is necessary before one can
record transatlantic conversation as
q commercial possibility.
To conduct uninterrupted speech
over sea distances similar to that be-
tween London and New York will re-
Quire, at any rate with our present
day experience, considerable power at
the transmitting end. Until a few
weeks ago l might have been tempted
to estimate this power at the electrical
equivalent of over 1000 horsepower,
but the experiments which l have been
engaged upon recently on my yacht,
the Elettra, lead me to modify my
estimate. Hitherto, as everyone con-
nected with wireless Is aware, we have
always found it necessary to keep
3n reserve on commercial wireless cir
ruits q large amount of electrical en-
ergy for the purpose of breaking
through terrestrial electrical disturb
snces. The sources of these disturb
ences are not always clear, but they
are such that at intervals during the
day, and notably in the summer
months, they set up in the wireless
receiving apparatus such a din of
meaningless noises that it Is difficult
10 read the Systematically transmitted
signal.
This new apparatus, which has been
developed by engineers of my com
pany, makes it possible for US to sift
the mixed wireless and non-wireless
impulses so that we obtain on our au-
tomato recorders, or in the telephone
receivers only the signals sent out by
the distant wireless stations. i think