New Britain herald., 1922-10-16
ELECTRON TUBES
 WIRELESS LATEST
May Bring Power Of Niagara to New York, Engineers Think

New York. Oct. l6.-The success Of a sixteen-hour test of electron tubes in place Of large alternators in trans hitting wireless telegraph messages across the Atlantic from the Radio Corporation plant at Rocky Point, I. I, has led Dr. F. F, w. Alexander son, chief engineer Of the corporation and inventor of the alternators which will soon be supplanted by the tubes, to predict that the transmission Of power from Niagara to New York through the air by means of the tubes was a possibility of the future
 We have seen a new physical principle reduced to practice on a large scale" he said in a telegram from Schenectady last night. Shall 1t fulfill the dreams that Edison's dynamo has not yet fulfilled to carry Eiagaras power to New York
 Great Possibilities.
 The possibilities of power transmits sion by the new tubes has fired the Imagination of scientists in the Gen eral Electric laboratories, and for some time they have felt that wire less transmission of power might come to pass in the future. The al most infinite potentialities of the tubes attracted the attention of Mar conf when he was here, and he said that their development was the next most important step in wireless. When they were tested a few days ago by the Radio Corporation and found to work successfully, it was predicted by radio engineers that this new de- ,rh principles that its expansion would mean a new era of transmission both by telegraph and telephone, and that its other possibilities were tremen- dous.
 Atlantic Service
 "Atlantic telegraphy has become routine business, but the importance of this demonstration is the bridging of the ocean by a few powerful vac uun tube units,' said Mir, Alexander son. Tn this case only six tubes were used and we can safely predict that the same feat will some day be per formed by a single tube. But what is the neXt?"
 After speculating on the possibility of power transmission, which it knows
 
 dream, he said:
 Ten years ago I became acquaint- ed with the little device known as! the audion. Then it was detector of signals and an amplifler. and the question arose: Why not amplify some more and then some more and use it for transmitting signals as well as for receiving? Dr, Langmuir gave the complete answer to this question.
 Although it has taken ten years to get to the point where we have today a transatlantic tube transmitter, in these ten years the energy of the vacuum tube has been increased more than 100000 times A few more years of the same rate of improve ment would bring us beyond our wild est dreams, but all we need to say Is that science and engineering have received a new tool. It marks a turn ing point like the steam engine and the dynamo. It will certainly give us transatlantic telephony, but it will undoubtedly give us much more"
 Not Surprised.
 Dr. Langmuir, inventor of th- tubes, when reached at his summer home at Bottoms Landing on Lake George, said:
 T am greatly pleased, but not sur prised at the success of the tubes. Itl is stepping stone in the progress Of many years development. We wilt make larger tubes when larger tubes are needed, and we will make them of greater efficiency for the principle on which this development has gone forward is a sound one.
 This does not mean, the Radio Cor poration officials said, that the alter nators would be immediately super seded. because the superiority has not yet been sufficiently demonstrated to permit the scrapping of the larger machines, although the eventual adop ton of the tubes is considered ln- 1 evitable Their value will be even greater to wireless telephone develop | ment, it is said, than to telegraph ef- | ficiency. as they were evolved by ap plication of the same principle that has made the Audio tube the most important achievement of those work | ing on the wireless telephone. Transatlantic Conversation in Sighs
 The human voice already has been carried across the Atlantic by wireless, | but only in one direction By means of these electran tubes it is expected that the voice may be sent both ways without difficulty so that extended conversations may be carried oa. This is not exactly the same as two voices talking at once, as wireless communi- | cation is made at the speed of light | and a word would reach Paris from New York so quickly that there would be no interference with the word com | ing back.