Short-Wave Wireless S ENATOR MARCONI, whose name will surely be one
of the most conspicuous in the notable calendar of scientists and inventors of our era, has just inaugurated a new and remarkable development in wireless, of far- reaching importance to the Empire. For a decade and more directional wireless has been to the modern inventor what the touchstone was to the alchemist, and now, after experiments which already in 1928 (when Senator Marconi cruised the high seas in his yacht Electra ') promised theoretical success, the Beam system of Radio-Telegraphy has become a commercial as well as a scientific possibility.
Anyone who has seen the existing high-power wireless stations, kilows the great sparks which crack like pistol- shots across the foot-wide arc of the induction coils, as if some terrible voice had to be of_ at the trans- mitting end to carry its message across long leagues of sea. Now all this is to be " scrapped " ; great aerials and mighty. coils are to be abolished ; the new wireless that shall link the Empire need not shout, it merely will pitch its speech on another note.
In the Rugby aerial there is an electrical energy developed equivalent to 1,850 horse-power ; under the new system the strength of twenty-seven horses will do the work with a signal-power one hundred times greater than. the old ,power, and with far greater .speed. Even at the present moment two hundred and fifty words a minute may be sent by the Beam system, which is double the pace at which anyone talks—who thinks of what he is saying.
A technical description of the Beam system would be out of place here, but its working may be conveyed to the lay mind by the statement that the old long- wavelengths were the bass notes of the .ether and that the new, shorter, more rapid vibrations are like the call .of a clear treble, a voice that will not be denied, linking us quickly and surely with the uttermost ends of the earth. These new wavelengths are not only more speedy and economical; they are also more docile and directable. Senator Marconi has been able to focus and aim these aery voices by means of a reflector, so that they will go about their appointed business directly, instead of spreading to the four points of the compass, thus ensuring a greater measure of secrecy than was ever before possible.
For all practical purposes I understand that the Beam system will be " untappable " by any amateur wireless station, because even if there was a listener-in within the narrow vector of the vibrations, he could not hope to receive the messages at the rate at which they will be sent. And not only will the new stations be smaller, speedier, cheaper and more secret, but in a few years the world will be in telephone communication by the same method. It is only a matter of detail, we have Senator Mareoni's assurance, before this will be done. Television will also employ the Beam system, but the uses of long-distance television are at the present time _problematic.
Before the next Imperial Conference we may expect the Prime Ministers of the Empire to arrange their Programmes by telephone. Already England has been linked up with Canada. Soon Canada will extend the new wireless chain to New Zealand and Australia, and these in turn will join with South Africa and India. Distance is being annihilated. Deep is calling to deep. Leviathan shall tune-in on Behemoth. Mercury has fitted earphones to his cap and put off his winged shoon.
F. YEATS-BROWN.
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