Masters of Space / Morse and the Telegraph; Thompson and the Cable; Bell and the Telephone; Marconi and the Wireless Telegraph; Carty and the Wireless Telephone

by Walter Kellogg Towers

XVIII

THE WIRELESS SERVES THE WORLD

Marconi Organized Wireless Telegraphy Commercially—The New Wonder
at the Service of the World—Marine Disasters Prevented—The
Extension of the Wireless on Shipboard—Improved Apparatus—The
Wireless in the World War—The Boy and the Wireless.

With his clear understanding of the possibilities of his invention, Marconi was not long in establishing the wireless upon a commercial basis. He is a man of keen business judgment, and as he brought his invention forward and clearly demonstrated its worth at a time when commercial enterprise was alert he found no great difficulty in establishing his company. The first Marconi company was organized as early as 1897 under the name of the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company, Limited. This was later displaced by the Marconi Telegraph Company, which operates a regular system of stations on a commercial basis, carrying messages in competition with the cable and telegraph companies. It also erects stations for other companies which are operated under the Marconi patents.

With the telegraph and the telephone so well established and serving the needs of ordinary communication on land, it was natural that the wireless should make headway but slowly as a commercial proposition between points on land. For communication at sea, however, it had no competition, and merchant-ships as well as war vessels were rapidly equipped with wireless apparatus.

When the great liner Republic was sinking as a result of a collision off the port of New York in 1903 her wireless brought aid. Her passengers and crew were taken off in safety, and what otherwise would have been a terrible disaster was avoided by the use of the wireless. The utility of the wireless was again brought sharply to the attention of the world. It was realized that a wireless set on a passenger-ship was necessary if the lives of the passengers were to be safeguarded. The United States Government by its laws now requires that passenger-ships shall be equipped with wireless apparatus in charge of a competent operator.

One of the early objections made to the wireless was its apparent lack of secrecy, since any other receiving apparatus within range of the waves sent forth by the sending station can receive the signals. It was also realized that as soon as any considerable number of stations were established about the world, and began sending messages to and fro, there would be a perfect jumble of waves flying about in all directions through the ether, so that no messages could be sent or received.

Marconi's answer to these difficulties was the tuning apparatus. The electric waves carrying the messages may be sent out at widely varying lengths. Marconi found that it was possible to adjust a receiving station so that it would receive only waves of a certain length. Thus stations which desired to communicate could select a certain wave-length, and they could send and receive messages without interfering with others using different wave-lengths, or without the receiving station being confused by messages coming in from other stations using different wave-lengths. You know that when a tuning-fork is set in vibration another of the same pitch near it will vibrate with it, but others of different pitch will not be affected. The operation of wireless stations in tune with each other is similar.

[Illustration: A REMARKABLE PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN OUTSIDE OF THE CLIFDEN
STATION WHILE MESSAGES WERE BEING SENT ACROSS TO CAPE RACE

The camera was exposed for two hours, and the white bars show the sparks leaving the wires for their journey through the air for seventeen hundred miles.]

[Illustration: MARCONI STATION AT CLIFDEN, IRELAND

These dynamos send a message straight across the ocean.]

An example of the value of tuning is afforded by the manner in which press reports are sent from the great Marconi station at Poldhu. Each night at a certain hour this station sends out news reports of the events of the day, using a certain set wave-length. Each ship on the Atlantic and every land station within range which is to receive the reports at that hour adjusts its receiving set to receive waves of that length. In this way they hear nothing but the Poldhu news reports which they desire to receive, and are not troubled by messages from other stations within range.

Secrecy is also attained by the use of tuning. It is possible that another station may discover the wave-length being used for a secret message and "listen in," but there are so many possible wave-lengths that this is difficult. Secrecy may also be secured by the use of code messages.

Many of the advantages of tuning were lost by the international agreement which provided that but two wave-lengths should be used for commercial work. This, however, enables ships to get in touch with other ships in time of need. With his telephone receivers the operator can hear the passage of the waves as they are brought to him by his aerial and the dots and dashes sound as buzzes of greater or less length. Out of the confusion of currents passing through the air he can select the messages he wishes to read by sound.

You may wonder how one wireless operator gets into communication with another. He first listens in to determine whether messages are coming through the ether within range in the wave-length he is to use. Hearing nothing, he adjusts his sending apparatus to the desired wave-length and switches this in with the signal aerial which serves both his sending and his receiving set. This at the same time disconnects his receiving set. He sends out the call letters of the station to which he wishes to send a message, following them with his own call letters, as a signature to show who is calling. After repeating these signals several times he switches out his sending set and listens in with his receiving set. If he then gets an answer from the other station he can begin sending the message.

Marconi was not allowed to hold the wireless field unmolested. Many others set up wireless stations, some of them infringing upon Marconi's patents. Others have devised wireless systems along more original lines. Particularly we should mention two American experimenters, Dr. de Forest and Professor Fessenden. Both have established wireless systems with no little promise. The system of Professor Fessenden is especially unique and original and may be destined to work a revolution in the methods of wireless telegraphy.

With an increase in the number of wireless stations and varieties of apparatus came a wide increase in the uses to which wireless telegraphy was applied. We have already noticed the press service from Poldhu. The British Government makes use of this same station to furnish daily news to its representatives in all parts of the world. The wireless is also used to transmit the time from the great observatories.

Some of the railroads in the United States have equipped their trails as well as their stations with wireless sets. It has proved its worth in communicating between stations, taking the place in time of need of either the telegraph or the telephone. In equipping the trains with sets a difficulty was met in arranging the aerials. It is, of course, impossible to arrange the wires at any height above the cars, since they would be swept away in passing under bridges. Even with very low aerials, however, communication has been successfully maintained at a distance of over a hundred miles. The speed of the fastest train affects the sending and receiving of messages not at all. It was also found that messages passed without hindrance, even though the train was passing through a tunnel.

Another interesting application of wireless telegraphy is to the needs of the fire-fighters. Fire stations in New York City have been equipped with wireless telegraph sets, and they have proved so useful in spreading alarms and transmitting news of fires that they seem destined to come into universal use.

The outbreak of the world war gave a tremendous impetus to the development of wireless telegraphy. The German cable to the United States was cut in the early days of the conflict. The sending power of wireless stations had been sufficiently increased, however, so that the great German stations could communicate with those in the United States. Communication was readily maintained between the Allies by means of wireless, the great stations at Poldhu and at the Eiffel Tower in Paris being in constant communication with each other and with the stations in Italy and in Russia.

Portable field sets had been used with some slight success even in the Boer War, and had definitely proved their worth in the Balkans. The outbreak of the greater war found all of the nations equipped with portable apparatus for the use of their armies. These proved of great use. The field sets of the United States Army also proved their utility in the campaign into Mexico in pursuit of Villa. By their means it was possible for General Pershing's forces to keep in constant touch with the headquarters in the United States.

The wireless proved as valuable to the navies as had been anticipated. The Germans in particular made great improvements in light wireless sets designed for use on aircraft. The problem of placing an aerial on an aeroplane is difficult, but no little headway has been made in this direction.

It is the American boy who has done the most interesting work with the wireless in the United States. While the commercial development has been comparatively slow, the boys have set up stations by the thousands. Most of these stations were constructed by the boys themselves, who have learned and are learning how best to apply this modern wonder to the service of man. So many amateurs set up stations that the Government found it necessary to regulate them by law. The law now requires that amateur experimenters use only short wave-lengths in their sending, which will not interfere with messages from Government or commercial stations. It also provides for the licensing of amateurs who prove competent.

The stations owned and operated by boys have already proved of great use. In times of storm and flood when wire communication failed they have proved the only means of communicating with many districts. In time of war these amateur stations, scattered in all parts of the country, might prove immensely valuable. Means have now been taken to so organize the amateurs that they can communicate with one another, and by this means messages may be sent to any part of the country.

One young American, John Hays Hammond, Jr., has applied the wireless in novel and interesting ways. By means of special apparatus mounted on a small boat he can by the means of a wireless station on shore start or stop the vessel, or steer it in any direction by his wireless control. He has applied the same system to the control of torpedoes. By this means a torpedo may be controlled after it has left the shore and may be directed in any direction as long as it is within sight. This invention may prove of incalculable benefit should America be attacked by a foreign power.

What startling developments of wireless telegraphy lie still in the future we do not know. Marconi has predicted that wireless messages will circle the globe. "I believe," he has said, "that in the near future a wireless message will be sent from New York completely around the world without relaying, and will be received by an instrument in the same office with the transmitter, in perhaps less time than Shakespeare's forty minutes."

Not long ago the United States battle-ship Wyoming, lying off Cape Henry on the Atlantic coast, communicated with the San Diego at Guaymas, on the Pacific coast of Mexico. This distance, twenty-five hundred miles across land, shows that Marconi's prediction may be realized in the not distant future.