Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-06-16

Il of the huge battery Of the
Tevden lars. The crash Of the discharge was
daefenin1 It drowned the noises which were
hammering at the windows OF the snack tne
bowling of the Winter gale, the CRACKING "a
thunder, the deep-toned booming OF the waves
breaking on Table Head, 800 feet below us.
Three times Marconi pressed the key spell
ING the signal "S"-three dots in Morse code.
he nausea and we watched the crude conerer'
ancestor of the radio detecter tube of today.
Again and again he sent the signal INTO
space.
suddenly the gold-leaf particles in the glass
t,,be of the coherer huddled together, as SUD
denly sprang apart. The siphon pen dropped
to the tape recorder and began to trace Ialns
bIue marks. Dot, dot, dot. An answering .
ssThev,re getting usP" cried Marconi. He
pressed the key again. 4,
"CSlace Bay sending" he hammered Out III
Morse. Another pause, then once more the
pen began to mark the moving tape. DOV oo''
dot space, dash, dot. ,,,,,
.s,rhat,s IS NJ our code for L understand
Marconi exclaimed They've got usl" Nine
teen hundred miles across the western ocean
the station at Clifden, on the Irish coast hao
picked up our message and acknowledged iVs
recent wireless for the first time had bridged
the Atlantic Ocean from west to east l sped
to the telegraph Office to tell the world that
new era had dawned.
That was in January, 1908, rs years ago.
Recently I read in a New York paper
radio dispatch from Comdr. Byrds Antarctic
expedition sent the day before from the Soutn
Polar ice pack Twenty-three hundred miles
from, the nearest inhabited land little group
of hardy explorers is picking up the news OF
ALI the world on a small portable radio sell
When the European war began in 1914 there
was lust one long-distance radio cnannei
operating for public use-lhe one Whlcn was
opened at Glace Bay that night in 1908. Tine
had not
broadcasting at that time was sun IN
dreamed Of.
A short time ago in Schenectady dozen
men grouped around q microphone chatteo Dy
radio with Australia, half a world away, WIN
Java listening in to the spoken words ana
occasionally taking part In the conversation
"The wires are doomed" the unthinking may
saw. But wires and cables, for telegraphy and
telephony have multiplied faster since the war
than ever before and are still pushing their
lines into the corners Of the earth. IN the
electrical network which Is daily tying the
world closer together both the old system ana
the new have their parts. Radio and the wires
parallel cross and supplement each other.
ON Christmas day, 1928, every radio-teie-
phone channel across the Atlantic was
crowded with congratulatory conversations in
a dozen languages between the United States
and every point but one in Europe which has
its telephone systems connected with the radio
phone. san Francisco talked to Oslo, 5000
miles: Vancouver exchanged Christmas greet
ings with oxford. Any telephone subscriber
anywhere in England, Scotland, Wales, France,
Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland or Ger
MANY or In the cities Of Copenhagen, Oslo,
stockholm, Danzig, Vienna and Budapest can
pick up his instrument and call up any tele-
phone subscriber in the United States Canada,
Mexico Cuba or Porto Rico. Durant, the motor
magnet, visiting Paris last Fall, ran up bill
of S25 600 for transatlantic service in single
month";
Marconi never dreamed Of that. He never
dreamed Of the enormous industries founded
an his invention, capitalized literally at billions
Of dollars He never dreamed Of the great
army Of scientists and inventors working today
70 discover new scientific principles and TO
apply them to the growing human need for
sWifter, surer and cheaper means OF commune
cation.
Radio supplements the wires; the wires ex-
tend the scope Of radio. Their research workers
interchange inventions and patents. Principles
deveIoped for radio speed up and multiply the
capacity of the wires.
One principle stands out clearly: Whatever
Aan be done by radio can be done better by
wires, wherever 1t and whenever 1t pays to
run wires or it Is physically possible to run
them. In the New World Of tomorrow we shall
see radio occupy only the fields which the
wires can't occupy. They are crowding today
close upon radios heels waiting to seize each
neld as soon as the growth Of population and
wealth makes It economical to do so. In their
laboratories research workers have discovered
how to make telephone cable which will carry