R 20
msgs. words
46,124
Traffic received during year 1928.......... 5,601
"1 ?? 1927.. ...3,824 37,043
Showing increases during 1928 of 1,777 9,081
The total increases during 1928 are thus 3,605 messages 6,771 words.
During the first quarter of the year the service suffered frequent interruptions and telegrams were heavily delayed owing to the Canton Station being engaged in handling military and Government traffic to other places. Representations were therefore made to Canton regarding the institution of a continuous daily short wave service. Tests were carried out on short waves during the greater part of the second quarter in order to determine the possibilities of reliable communication on short waves. The tests proved successful and it was decided to open the service on June 12th. Canton transmitting on 46 metres and VPS on 28 and 32 and 47 as required. The service was to be continuous from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. and every endeavour was to be made to avoid delays and errors. In order to bring the service into line with other modern services the "Receiver to Pay" system was abolished, a proper accounting system was instituted and rates reduced from 30 cents to 10 cents per word, without minimum, for each station. The total charge, which was paid by the sender, was therefore 20 cents per word against the previous rate of 60 cents per word.
This service proved moderately successful. Traffic, both forwarded and received, shows a steady increase rising from 544 forwarded messages in June to 1302 in December, and rising from 446 received messages in June to 761 in December.
Short wave communication did not prove to be quite so satisfactory as had been anticipated. Communication therefore improved by using 2,800 metres for VPS transmission and 1,300 metres for Canton transmission whenever short wave communication was interrupted by fading or other causes.
In addition to ordinary short wave difficulties Canton has had a very serious amount of transmitter trouble which caused frequent interruption to the service. It is for this reason that the volume of received traffic on this service is so much lower than that of forwarded traffic, as messages from Canton were quite frequently heavily delayed and the public did not have the same confidence in this part of the service as it had in the forwarded side from Hong Kong.