Jazz By Wireless Heard 1,500 Miles

1920

Low Power Generators Used in Experiment

Expect to Talk to England by Telephone If Present Trials Are Successful

England and the United States soon will be talking to each other by telephone if experiments which now are being conducted in both countries are successful. Already nightly efforts are being made by the British to make American operators hear their voices over the wireless telephone. So far the attempt has been fruitless.

However, just the other day Americans set a new record for talking by wireless, when operators in Chicago, Topeka, Kan., and half a dozen points not more than 1,500 miles from New York distinctly heard the New York operator talking and then listened to a jazz record on his talking machine.

Low Power Generators Used

The record was made because generators of only one-third of a kilowatt of power were used. When last year, for the benefit of President Wilson, navy operators sent his voice ringing around the world by wireless, they used a 300-kilowatt generator. There is no limit to the distance which can be covered the wireless telephone provided sufficient power is used, but to come within a reasonable expense present devices must be made more perfect.

New York and Chicago now have a little talk every night and all over the country the members of the American Radio Relay League, which has half a million members, strain their ears in an effort to overhear what is being said. The New Yorker is Robert F. Gowen of the DeForest Radio company, and the Chicago operator is R. G. Mathews, who worked with the navy wireless during the war. They now are trying to get an operator at Roswell, n. M., to hear Gowen talking. If he succeeds then the wireless talk will be directed at a San Francisco operator.

Span Country Without Wires

"When we can span the country with the human voice without the aid of wires we will have solved the question of how to take care of the ever increasing long-distance telephone business," says Mathews. "Now, if a fellow wants to make a long distance call he has to wait an hour or two because all the trunk lines are busy. When the wireless telephone is an assured thing central will plug the patron in on an aerial trunk line and he can get to talk right away. The chances are he won't know the difference, either, except that he can hear more distinctly and there won't be any of the tinny sound that now interferes with telephoning.

"The great problem is to make it possible to use the telephone without making it so expensive the average person can't afford it. The low power and short wave lengths we are experimenting with now are within the reach of almost every amateur wireless fan."