Wireless communication

“ In these progressive times it is only reasonable to expect that some attempt would be made to utilise the ether-waves for other purposes than that of telegraphic communication, and already many clever minds are at work trying to solve the problems of the wireless control of torpedoes and airships, wireless telephony, and, last but not least, the wireless transmission of photographs. ”

“ During some of the winter storms and blizzards, when miles of wires were down in all directions, wireless has been the sole means of communication in certain instances.
The process of sending a wireless message is very simple. The aerial switch is usually kept in such a position that the receiving instruments are connected to the ground and aerial so that the operator is always able to hear any one calling him. We will suppose for illustration that the land station at 42 Broadway, New York City, wishes to transmit a message to the steamer "Horatio Hall." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Wonderful as all this is, it is now eclipsed by wireless telegraphy—now passed beyond its experimental stages, and rapidly coming into the practical commerce of the nations. Man is no longer dependent upon a network of wires and cables for means of communication. The atmosphere enveloping the world affords sufficient means for conducting vibrations made intelligible by the instrument of man's invention; and today, even across the surface of the broad Atlantic, messages are transmitted by this means as easily as by means of the cable lines. ”

“ The laws relating to the uses of wireless, and especially the rights of governments to the sole use of the systems in case of war, are in a confused condition, but eventually order must come from this chaos as it did in the history of the telephone and telegraph.
Wireless has brought the possibility of communication between any two individuals, no matter where they may be situated, within the realm of fact. A severing of communication with any part of the world will be impossible. ”

“ By means of wireless telephony the transmission of intelligence is far more direct and expeditious, and in times of emergency this not unfrequently becomes a very vital question indeed. An important characteristic of wireless telephonic communication is the exceptional clearness of the articulation, owing to the absence of the electrostatic capacity of metallic lines and cables which is always present in wire telephony. ”

“ We were working on a closed means of radio communication—a method of wireless connection that would not only prevent the enemy from decoding or unscrambling, but which would be impossible to detect unless you were set up properly. ”

“ Wireless Control, of aeroplanes and ships, vii, 283-4 Wireless Signals, in aeronautics, i, 291, 292, 302 Wireless Telegraphy, iv, 313-16; alternating currents in, vi, 168; conditions of transmission, vii, 272-3; detectors, 268, xvi, 191-2; history, 191; induction coils in, iv, 305, 313, 314; resonance in, 226; strays or static, i, 162-3; theory for amateurs, vii, 285-98; vacuum tubes in, vi, 125, vii, 276-80; weather reporting by, i, 257, 269, 280-2, 315; in World War, vii, 283 (see also Wireless Communication) Wireless Telephony, iv, 315-16 ”

“ No such trouble can occur with wireless telegraphy, and if it becomes necessary to move a wireless station with great rapidity, as for instance on an unexpected advance of the enemy, it is an advantage to have no wire to bother about. ”

“ Here, in the depths, is woven that mysterious power that carries the wireless message through the rocks of the mountains and the channels of the sea, and wraps the earth in a diaphanous garb that makes the wireless telephone a possibility. ”

“ Truly the science of radio-telegraphy has made rapid strides since the days of the “coherer,” until now, after the war, it is the most advanced in our human civilisation, and at the same time full of romance. Not a month passes but something new is discovered in that high-built, well-knit laboratory, where daily the keenest brains of wireless experimenters are at work devising, testing, and too often scrapping new instruments, new circuits, and new devices in order to improve and render less complicated both the ordinary wireless by Morse, and that modern marvel, the wireless telephone. ”

“ For many reasons wireless telephony can never take the place of wire systems, but it may be expected to supplement them in a useful manner. Wireless telephone systems are subject to serious interference from numerous conditions, atmospheric and others. ”

“ They listened to talks from men skilled in radio work, they wandered about to the many booths where information was given about everything connected with wireless, they studied various types of coils, transformers, vacuum tubes, switches, aerials, terminals, everything in fact that ambitious young amateurs could wish to know. ”

“ If the electricity with which any conducting body is charged be suddenly disturbed, electrical waves are generated which travel outwards in all directions with the velocity of light. The problem of wireless telegraphy is the problem of producing these waves by means of an instrument called a transmitter, and of recording their impact at a distance by means of an instrument called a receiver. ”

“ There is a very decided field of opportunity for wireless telephony for long-distance work. The present systems of long-distance wires are very expensive to construct and maintain, and are subject to the whims of storms and the elements. ”

“ That is why any wireless receiving station, within a certain radius, can catch any messages that may be flying through the air--that is unless certain apparatus is tuned, or adjusted, to prevent this."
"Well, once the impulses, or electric currents, are sent out into space, all that is necessary to do is to break, or interrupt them at certain intervals, to make dots, dashes and spaces. These make corresponding clicks in the telephone receiver which the operator at the receiving station wears on his ear. ”

“ We have been so often told that power can be transmitted by Radio that we are apt to look upon this statement with contempt. This is quite wrong: power will one day be transmitted by wireless; power can at present be inductively sent over quite [Pg 73] a large air gap, though the energy available quite close to any wireless station is practically negligible to-day.
When motor-cars and ships are controlled or stopped by wireless, it is not the wireless which does the work; the therial oscillation merely sends signals to the ordinary operative mechanism. ”

“ In a few years time we shall be able to chat to our friends in an aeroplane and in the streets with the help of a pocket wireless set, and be able to do practically everything by the aid of radio that we now do with our voice. ”

“ The whole principle of the wireless telephone is based on the fact that sound can be transformed into electricity and then can be transformed back into sound again. I know," he said, with a smile, "that that sounds very much like saying that you can make eggs into an omelet and then get the omelet back into separate eggs again"—here there was an audible snicker from the boys—"but that is very much like what is done by the wireless, although it doesn't exactly fit the case. ”

“ Wireless telegraphy already has reached remarkable perfection, but it is still a young science, and we may confidently expect developments which will enable us to send messages with all speed across vast gulfs of distance at present unconquered. ”

“ In days when wireless telegraphy is occupying such a great deal of the world’s attention, it is not likely to cause much astonishment in the reader to learn that wireless transmission of speech over considerable distances is an accomplished fact. ”

“ Wireless telegraphy, as it is practiced to-day, is based upon the fact that a system of wires or circuits, through which high frequency oscillations are surging, becomes a source of electromagnetic waves. Various methods have been devised for making the system more efficient and capable of giving better results with a given amount of power. ”

“ Many of those who had followed wireless telegraphy from its beginnings and knew somewhat of the theory of how it worked, set up a hue and a cry that the signals he had received were sent by ships at sea, or else they were due to static, as we call it now, that is, little charges of atmospheric electricity which accumulates on the aerial wire and finally discharges through the detector into the ground and this makes a click in the head-phones that sounds like a dot. ”

“ The practical success of wireless telegraphy depends on the use of an adequate medium for the transmission of electricity. The most meagre training suffices to prevent the declaration that if wireless messages cannot be sent without apparatus they cannot be sent at all. ”

“ So when after Chapter V had been written Captain Morris found new and interesting information on the use of wireless telegraphy in aircraft in the days before the war, the whole of this difficult chapter had to be reopened for new patching. “In regard to wireless,” he wrote, “I am like a blind man who has never talked to painters employed to write a critique of a picture exhibition. It’s paralysing. The only escape is to keep on broad lines. Every one knows that wireless sends messages. ”

“ Martin’s-in-the-Fields, and at the wedding nearly half the engineering staff from the Marconi Works at Chelmsford attended.
Truly the guilty secrets of many men and women have been detected by means of wireless, that science which daily reveals its further wonders to those persevering experimenters who seek so patiently to penetrate its mysteries. ”

“ Nearly all the big wireless companies have great stations fitted with powerful telephone transmitters and at given hours of the day and night they send out songs by popular singers, dance music by jazz orchestras, fashion talks by and for the ladies, agricultural reports, government weather forecasts and other interesting features. Then by simply shifting the slide on your tuning coil you can often tune-in someone who is sending Morse, that is, messages in the dot and dash code, or, perhaps a friend who has a wireless telephone transmitter and is talking. ”

“ When the light is turned on and the little tantalum filament glows, it is ready for business.
"It can be used for all systems of wireless—singing spark, quenched spark, arc sets, telephone sets; in fact, it will detect a wireless wave from whatever source it is sent. It is so susceptible that a man with one attached to an ordinary steel-rod umbrella on a rainy night can pick up wireless messages that are being transmitted within some hundreds of miles radius."
The audion buzzed. ”

“ To make wireless telephony a success it was necessary to find some way of making perfectly uniform carrier-waves, and then of loading on them waves of speech. Of course, the latter are not sound-waves, because they are not waves of air, but they are electro-magnetic waves corresponding exactly to the sound-waves of air and at the receiving-end they affect the telephone receiver in the191 same way that it is affected by the electric waves which are sent over telephone wires. ”

“ Wireless telephony, like wireless telegraphy, but to an even greater extent, is peculiarly suited for the conveyance of marine intelligence. Wireless telephony occupies a unique position in this regard-no operator is required. The additional expense of an operator is an objection to the wireless telegraph in many cases, and forbids its installation. Anybody can operate the wireless telephone. It is also much quicker-words can be spoken more rapidly than they can be put into Morse signals and translated. ”

“ The apparatus used as developed by the engineers of the Bell system was in a measure an outgrowth of their work with the long-distance telephone. Wireless telephony, despite the wonders it has already accomplished, is still in its infancy. With more perfect apparatus and the knowledge that comes with experience we may expect that speech will girdle the earth.
It is natural that one should wonder whether the wireless telephone is destined to displace our present apparatus. ”

“ The wireless transmission of photographs has, no doubt, a great commercial value, but for any system to be commercially practicable, it must be simple, rapid, and reliable, besides being able to work {2}in conjunction with the apparatus already installed for the purpose of ordinary wireless telegraphy. ”

“ It is only natural that wireless should first have been applied to Love and War. I remember well one of the most remarkable applications of wireless mentioned in the press in the early days was that of a cable sent to an unfortunate man in mid-ocean, informing him that an all too successful arrival of twins had taken place. ”

“ At present wireless telegraphy has not superseded the ordinary methods of communicating over land, but there can be no doubt that wireless telegraphy, if free from Government restrictions, would in certain circumstances very quickly supersede land-line telegraphy, while it has proved a formidable commercial competitor to the cable as a means of connecting this country with America. ”

“ In summer the trees are full of sap and, being much better conductors of electricity when in this condition, act in the capacity of innumerable aerials rising in the air, and able to absorb appreciable amounts of energy. During these same months the air becomes highly ionized, in which state the air molecules carry an electric charge, and are particularly opaque to the waves. This condition also usually exists in the presence of sunlight, the result being that the most favorable time for the wireless transmission of messages are the hours around midnight. ”