["Wireless Telegraphy At Sea", The West Australian, Wednesday 13 July 1910, page 7]
WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY AT SEA.
THE OTRANTO'S INTERESTING VOYAGE.
THE JOHNSON-JEFFRIES FIGHT.
HOW THE NEWS WAS RECEIVED.
At the time when all good people had resigned their cares to the keeping of Morpheus on Sunday night, the Marconi operator on the Orient liner Otranto was consulting his Marconi chart--a confusion of latitudinal and longitudinal lines, intersected by oblique dotted tracks. To a layman it might represent some abstruse problem in trigonometry, but to his practical eye, it showed him the positions of various vessels fitted with wireless apparatus from day to day; and the radius in which their messages could be detected. For some days his transmitter had been speaking in monosyllables to the vast unhearing ocean, but the lines on the chart told him that the "voice" of his transmitter would soon be audible. A little later and the powerful induction coil of his transmitter was emitting a torrent of sparks causing the etheric waves to radiate to a distance of some 900 miles. Within that radius were the P. and O. liner Macedonia, and the White Star liner Persic and almost in an instant the presence of some unusual disturbance in the ether was communicated to the operators of both vessels by means of the receiver. Much as the eye interprets or intercepts the etheric vibrations we call light so the receiver detects the etheric vibrations peculiar to wireless phenomena.
"We are about 500 miles from Fremantle, and hope to arrive on time. Good night," clicked the transmitter on the Otranto and with an answering "good night," the Macedonia's operator recorded the message. From the time of leaving Colombo the greatest desideratum in the way of news was the result of the great championship fight between Johnson and Jeffries and immediately it was known on board the Otranto on the following morning that the Macedonia was within hailing distance there was an immediate demand for the result of the contest. Not only was the result transmitted, but a full description of the fight, taken from one of the eastern papers, was despatched through space as each round was ticked off on the Otranto's receiver, it was eagerly read by the Otranto's passengers.
That dreary sense of isolation with which the traveller was wont to associate the voyage between the old country and Australia is fast becoming a thing of the past. Since leaving London--the Otranto--which, by the way, is the first of the Orient liners to be fitted with wireless - has been in communication with no less than 23 shore stations, and 45 steamers. Leaving London on June 10, she received daily communications, giving all the latest Stock Exchange news, from the Poldhu station, in Cornwall, and this was continued until June 21, when she was 1,500 miles distant. Whilst able to receive messages from a distance such as this, the Otranto's installation is unable to transmit messages to so great a distance, and her record so far is 830 miles with the Bombay station. In the Atlantic Ocean she communicated with the Cunard liner Lusitania at a distance of 594 miles, whilst she also spoke the vessel on which ex-President Roosevelt returned to America from the Continent. On June 15 she carried on a conversation with the steamer Amazon at a distance of 761 miles. The instrument is of the very latest design and the operator (Mr. Fisk) is highly pleased with the results obtained during the voyage. Over 200 vessels of the British mercantile marine are now equipped with the Marconi apparatus, whilst the company has about 84 shore stations.
In all cases where the Marconi system is used the Marconi Company supply the instrument which remains their property, and also supplies the operators, so that the vessels using the system may be compared to subscribers to an exchange. The operators on the various liners are controlled by the Marconi Company, and are frequently changed from one vessel to another, irrespective of the shipping companies. From an Atlantic liner an operator may be transferred to some private yacht, or he may be called upon to go to the Arctic icefields with a seal-hunting expedition. Such has been the experience of Mr. Fisk, the Otranto's operator. Early this year he was transferred from one of the Cunard liners to the steamer Florizel, which was about to leave St. Johns, Newfoundland, in company with 18 other vessels, on a seal-hunting expedition. One of the vessels was the Terra Nova, in which Captain Scott is to make his voyage to the Antarctic regions. Only two vessels of the fleet, however, were fitted with wireless, both of these being owned by the one man. For three weeks they remained amongst the seas of floating ice, and during that time the Florizel succeeded in securing no less than 46,000 seals, which was the record for the season. The total catch for the fleet of 19 vessels was 603,000 seals. Despite the extreme cold, Mr. Fisk spent a most enjoyable and interesting time, and he has now in his possession a splendid series of photographs depicting the denizens of the icy regions in their natural habitat.
