142 RECENT ADVANCES IN WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY. 



A new station, supplied with more powerful and more perfect 

 apparatus, is in course of erection, and the author has not the slight- 

 est doubt but that in a very short time the practicability and relia- 

 bility of transatlantic wireless telegraphy will be fully demonstrated. 



In connection with these very powerful stations it is interesting 

 to observe that the fact which the author had noticed in 1895 and 

 which he expressed in his patent of June 2, 1896, that " the larger the 

 plates (or capacities) of the receiver and transmitter and the higher 

 from the earth the plates are suspended the greater the distance that 

 it is possible to communicate at parity of other conditions," still 

 holds good, and therefore the elevated conductors at these stations 

 are much larger and higher than those used at the smaller power 

 stations. The potential to which they are charged is also very much 

 in excess of that used at the short-distance stations. 



Pending the reconstruction of these long-distance stations, valuable 

 tests have been carried out, and daily commercial work is carried on 

 over distances of about 2,000 miles. In October, 1903, it was found 

 possible to supply the Cunard steamship Lucania during her entire 

 crossing from New York to Liverpool with news transmitted direct 

 to that ship from Poldhu and Cape Breton. 



Since June a regular long-distance commercial service has been in 

 operation on certain ships of the Cunard Steamship Company, which 

 ships, throughout their voyage across the Atlantic, receive daily news 

 messages collected for transmission by Messrs. Renter in England, 

 and by the Associated Press in America. At present five trans- 

 Atlantic steamships are thus publishing a daily newspaper contain- 

 ing telegraphic messages of the latest news. 



The practical and experimental work carried out in connection 

 with the long and short distance stations has afforded valuable 

 opportunities for noting and studying various unknown and unex- 

 pected effects of the condition of space on the propagation of electro- 

 magnetic waves. 



The author being able to avail himself of the daily reports of over 

 70 ships and 50 land stations, the chances of error from what might 

 be termed accidental results are reduced to a minimum. Thus it is 

 interesting to observe that the difference between the propagation of 

 the wave by day and by night is only noticeable in the case of long- 

 distance stations; or, in other words, where a considerable amount 

 of energy is forced into the transmitting aerial wires. For instance, 

 all the short-distance ship-to-shore stations having a range of about 

 150 miles averaged the same distance of communication by day as 

 by night; but the long-distance stations, such as Poldhu, Cape 

 Breton, and Cape Cod, as originally constructed, averaged by day 

 two-fifths of the distance covered by night. 



