The Washington herald., 1922-10-15
WIRELESS SIGNAL
TRAVELSAT SAME
SPEED ASLICHT
Goes Through Ether at
Rate of $4,000 Miles
A Second.
SHOWN ON OCEAN
Get Midnight Time from Hon.
olulu and Noontime from
Nauen at Same Tick.
SHOWN ON OCEAN

The sound of a singers voice or
the music of an orchestra travels
through the air at a little more than
1000 feet a second. II the same
sound lis sent through the micro
phone Of p radio rhone broadcasting
station It travels through the ether
at the same speed as light. $4,000
miles a second. The circumference
OF the earth is $4,000 miles. so the
radio wave carries the sound around
the world approximately seven and
one-half times in the twinkle of an
eye.
A radio message spoken in New
o. York can be heard in Portland,
Ore, in one sixty-second of a sec
Ond. II sound unaided by radio w-s
capable to carry the message Vt
would take four and two-fifth hours
to reach Portland. In that time the
radio message would be nearly three
billions of miles out In space. far
beyond Neptune. 1t takes eight
minutes for light to reach the earth
from the sun. 1t would take the
same length of time for a radio sig
nal to bridge the distance. While
the radio message was speeding on
toward Old Sol a sound messag
would reach only about 100 miles II
ii could travel that far A radi'
message flashed to the North sta
tonight would not reach its des-
for fifty years. so far is the pola
star from the earth.
Example Of Great Velocity.
Another example of the tremen-
dous velocity of radio waves is illus
tination for nifty years. so far is
broadcastinE the worlds series at
the Polo Grounds Grantland Rice
spoke through a powerful mega
phone at the same time his words
struck the transmitter to be broad
cast from WIZ. Through the meg
sphone the address OF the speaker
could probably be heard distinctly
1000 feet from him. Again COM
pairing the two rates Of speed. or
sound and radio. il will be found
that a radio listener 500 miles away
will hear the voice from the Polo
Grounds many fractions of a second
before any one at the edge Of the
crowd only 1000 feet away from
the speaker Almost before the
crack OF the bat knocking a home
run echoed through the grandstand
and the ball dropped into the bleach
ers the radio audience hundreds OF
miles distant would have the news
before the player crossed the plate
to record tn circuit drive.
Radio operators on ships in the
Pacific have often demonstrated the
terrific speed Of radio waves by re-
Caiving the midnight time signal
from Honolulu and then, by quick
adjustment. and at the same tick
Of the watch. caught the noontime
signal from Nauen. Germany.
GAUGE of wGY whistle.
Those who have listened recently
on the program Of wGY at Schenec-
lady. y. V. have observed a whistle
between numbers. SOme radio en-
thusiasts have thought the whistle
was due to an imperfection in their
receiving sets and others. observing
that the whistle came only from
wGY. were convinced that some>
thing was wrong with the broad
casting apparatus. Neither theory
is right The whistle Is caused by
an audio frequency Oscillator used
convenience Of the audience. The
instant a musical number is ended
in the studio the whistle starts au
tomatically and from now on will
serve as an Identifying mark of
wGY II the audience approves.
Many have reported that they have
lost the station between numbers
and before tuning again the next
number Is well under way and they
have failed to get the announcement.
There is sometimes a slight delay
between selections, a delay which
seems minutes to the operator at
the receiving end. although it is
actually only a few seconds. lie
thinks. the instruments out Of tune
and begins to retune and generally
loses the station. The whistle per
sIsting during intermission will en-
able the man at the receiver to
know whether he is still in tune
with wGY.