CO129-458 - Public Offices & Others - 1919 — Page 517

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could only be made after conference with the Dominion authorities. A valve station could be erected in the United Kingdom to communicate with a similar station in Canada, at an approximate distance of 2,500 miles, the capital cost (apart from residences) of the two complete stations (subject to any percentage increase in cost and salaries in Canada) being about £250,000, and the annual charges, including amortisa tion, about £90,000. For such an efficient service a load of some 4,000,000 words per aunum might reasonably be expected at the existing wireless rates, which for ordinary traffic are two-thirds of the cable rates, though for deferred and other cheap-rate traffic there is only a difference of a halfpenny a word. This traffic would give a revenue of about £50,000 a year for the two stations, and it would doubtless increase in the near future at a fairly rapid rate But the value of the wireless service as an adjunct to the Imperial cable, and as a relief in case of interruption of the latter, would be considerable, and would justify a certain loss upon it in the earlier years.

If the Dominion authorities desire it, a similar pair of stations might give wireless communication between Eastern Canada and Vancouver (say, 2,500 miles), but a Canadian station on the Pacific, from an Imperial point of view, involves consideration of a high-power Australian station.

42. The Australian Government has made an official request for information regarding the type and power of a station, to be situated south of latitude 30° S., recommended for communication with any station situated south of latitude 30° N. This specification, however, gives insufficient information regarding the maximum range desired, since the shortest distance between these parallels of latitude would be due north and south, along a meridian of longitude, namely, 4,140 statute miles, whereas in a north-easterly or north-westerly direction the distance would be very much greater.

The specification of communication with a station in latitude 30 N. rules out Vancouver, which is situated in latitude 50° N., and in any case, as already stated, " regard an efficient and economical commercial wireless service over this distance, say, to Brisbane, 7,864 miles, as outside present possibilities. Taking 6,000 miles, however, as the maximum range envisaged in the above-mentioned inquiry, which would be about the distance from Poona to Brisbane, the latter being near the position of a station contemplated south of latitude 30 S., it is possible that a station might be erected there to give a more or less efficient service, at least by night, over this distance. The smallest are transmitter to be considered for the purpose would be one of 750 kilowatts. The cost of the duplicated power plant, namely, two 850-kilowatt turbo-generators, three water-tube boilers, and all auxiliary plant and buildings, erected in Australia, would be £97.000. The costs of the rest of the station English prices plus a suitable addition) would be: pair of arc-transmitters, £52,000; eight steel masts 820 feet bigh and aerial system, £160,000; wireless plant building, £10,000; roads and fences, £3,000; receiving station, £12,000; contingencies, £22,000; making an approximate total capital cost of £356,000, to which must be added cost of site and residences. The annual costs would be, for generating, supervision, interest and depreciation, say £75,000, and for operating, £16,000, making a total approximate annual charge of £91,000. There can be no certainty, however, that this power would suffice. The inost experienced makers of these ares give less than 6,000 miles as the maximum range for an all-year service, and so far as we know there is nowhere a 750-kilowatt are operating under efficient conditions from which its performance may be judged. Therefore, it would probably be thought desirable to install 1,000-kilowatt arcs for this service, at a considerably greater cost. Still less, however, is known of arcs of this extreme capacity, since one has never yet been erected, and, as before stated (see sec- tion 11 (b)), we should regard it as an unwise adventure to incur such expense before awaiting the results obtained from the 1,000-kilowatt are shortly to be completed by the French Government near Bordeaux,

In view of the foregoing considerations the Australian Government would be well- advised, in our opinion, to be content for the next few years, which may well bring striking developments in long-range wireless telegraphy, with the communication from northern Australia to Singapore by the employment of the valve station we recommend, the more so since emergency strategic needs appear likely, as explained later, also to be met by this scheme.

43. The same considerations apply to the construction of a Pacific super-station by the Canadian authorities for communication with Australia. If the Australian Government decides not to erect a station of very high power, and the Canadian Government should hesitate to erect a Pacific station which, in that event, would be used entirely for communication with a foreign country, namely, Japan, it might be

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well for them to allow the Canadian Marconi Company to do so, under suitable conditions, in accordance with a proposal recently made by that company to the Canadian Government. The telegraphic facilities between Canada and Japan are at present bad and the rates are very high, and communication between the United States and Japan also leaves much to be desired. Any estimate of traffic must be

guess-work -out an initial load of 1,500,000 words might fairly be expected, producing an income for the Canadian station of, say, £75,000.

44. Communication with the West Indies is being independently considered by a Sub-Committee of the Imperial Communications Committee. If this should decide in favour of a wireless system, probably £100,000 to £150,000 would be required for reconstructing the existing stations and providing the necessary new stations.

45. The provision of a station at Singapore for communication with Australia does not in every respect fulfil the strategic requirements of the Admiralty (see Section 81. This criticism, however, may perhaps be met by the following considerations. It is necessary to bear in mind the vital distinction between a satisfactory commercial service, and a means of strategic communication. The former postulates continuous, high-speed, duplex signalling, with a small percentage of repetitions, during practically twenty-four hours a day. The latter demands only the passage of single messages, which may be repeated several times if necessary. We have received, through his Excellency the Governor-General, extracts from the official diary of Radio-Awarua Station, New Zealand, in which it is stated that the signals of Horsea are read there frequently, at medium strength, only a single-valve receiving apparatus being employed. Now, if Horsea, with 25 kilowatts in an aerial 420 feet high, is read in New Zealand with a one-valve receiver, it would appear that the English valve stations, and still more, of course, the Egyptian and Indian valve stations, with 120 kilowatts (see Section 11 (d)) in an aerial 656 feet high, would certainly be read in Australia with multi-valve reception. And conversely, that the corresponding valve station in Australis would be read in India, in Cairo, and probably in England. We do not mean, let us repeat, that a commercial service is possible in this manner; we merely point to the experience of the New Zealand station, to show that emergency strategic messages might be expected to be transmissible to and from Australia, by the Imperial scheme we recommend, even if the station of Singapore were for any reason unavailable.

46. It will have been observed that when a balance is struck between the above estimates of annual cost and aunual revenue, the working of the Imperial wireless scheme shows a net yearly loss for the opening years of £100,000, after allowance for interest on capital at 6 per cent., and full amortization of plant and buildings. This loss might have been expected to prove greater. It was not to be thought that a world- wide scheme of this kind, involving the growth of much new telegraphic traffic, could be established to yield an immediate profit. Our estimates of cost are carefully

conservative, but we believe we have devised the most economical method in which a scientific, satisfactory Imperial wireless service can be secured in the shortest possible time. Though our proposals are modest, we are convinced that they will link together the far-flung communities of the Empire by quick and trustworthy communications, and that the natural growth of traffic and the certain increase of wireless signalling speed will in due course wipe out the initial loss, and reduction of rates will then be possible. This has been the history of cable communication. The State-owned Pacific cable showed a heavy loss during the first ten years of its working; to-day it pays handsomely. An annual loss of £63,000 by the Imperial Government, of £4,000 by the Indian Government, of £20,000 by the Australian Government, and of £13,000 by the Government of South Africa-losses which there is every reason to believe will decrease year by year until in ten years they will have disappeared-is a small price to pay for the gain to commerce, to social intercourse and to national defence throughout the Empire. We have had evidence that the overseas communities are eager and impatient for these Imperial links to be forged. It would be a false economy at this moment, in our opiniou, to think more of a few thousand pounds than of many nations.

47. In considering the erection of wireless stations it should be borne in mind that the greater part of the material is a matter of ordinary commercial manufacture. Buildings, power plant, transformers, conleusers, switchboards, batteries, high tension lines, telegraph lines, masts, aerial wires and earth connections, insulators, &c., which represent more than three-quarters of the total cost of a station, would be subject to competitive tender by many manufacturing firms. The manufacture of valves on the

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