Courtesy of Marconi Wireless Co.
TELEPHONING FROM NEW YORK TO SAN FRANCISCO BY WIRELESS
The De Forrest system is very largely used in the United States, Japan, and elsewhere, and in its more recent modifications secures a high efficiency by means of a number of ingenious improvements.
Describe the wireless telephone.
As in wireless telegraphy, all modern systems of wireless telephony are based upon the action of electro-magnetic waves. It is impossible here to discuss all the various methods that have been devised, but the leading principles employed may be indicated, with special reference to some of the best-known systems. They may be classified according to the methods in which the waves are produced.
Spark Discharge Systems.—These rely for the generation of the Hertzian waves upon a spark discharge across an air-gap. The De Forrest system is perhaps the most popular of this type. In this system the spark discharge is utilized to produce waves of a frequency not less than one hundred thousand per second, the resulting sound being inaudible at the receiving station.
A microphone transmitter is employed with this apparatus. When the operator speaks into the transmitter, the variations of resistance act upon the waves in such a way as to produce a new series of waves of such frequency as to be audible at the receiver.
The receiving apparatus includes the usual antenna, and closed secondary circuit, comprising an inductance and a variable capacity, across the terminals of which an Audion delicate detector is introduced. This instrument depends upon the motions of the ions in a rarefied gas. It is one of the most sensitive detectors yet invented, and offers the great advantage of a practically total absence of time lag in recovery.
Singing-Arc Systems.—Duddell’s discovery of the singing arc in 1909 has been quickly followed by its application to radio-telephony and radio-telegraphy, first by Poulsen and subsequently by Fessenden, Stone, De Forrest, and others. Under certain conditions the electric arc can be made to emit a musical note, while at the same time it transforms a portion of the energy of its own direct current into oscillations. These are led into an oscillation circuit containing a condenser and inductance, and associated with [921] an antenna and earth line. The microphone transmitter may be included in a circuit associated with the inductance, in which case the voice acting on the resistance of the transmitter causes variations in the oscillating currents; or it may be associated with some part of the direct-current circuit, in which case it acts by affecting the current passing across the arc.