504
24
large scale here proposed would have to be the subject of special arrangement with one or more firms. Tenders for the other purely wireless material would be invited from the firms specializing in such apparatus.
We are informed that in the present state of trade about twelve months would be required for the delivery of the power plant, even with official priority, and therefore it is probable that the complete stations could not be in operation under a period of two years at the least.
48. The practical procedure to be followed, if the Government decide to give effect to our recommendations, remains to be considered.
This procedure involves a clear appreciation of two widely distinct aspects of the erection of a wireless station. These are (a) design and (b) construction,
To procure power plant from the specification of one authority, masts and aerial system from another, buildings from another, wireless apparatus from a fourth, and to assemble these at the selected site, has been a tempting method in the past, but its result is inevitably the inefficiency of the station as a whole. The actual construction of a wireless station is a comparatively simple undertaking. Any competent consulting engineer can draw up the specification of power plant; the masts and aerial system are an easy proposition to those experienced in such construction; the actual production of the wireless apparatus will be readily undertaken by specialist manufacturers. All these things require only competent business organisation to invite tenders, conclude contracts, supervise deliveries and carry out construction. Such an organisation, on a large scale and with great experience of precisely this class of work, exist in the Engineering Department of the Post Office, and there can be no doubt, in our opinion, that to this department in England, and to the corresponding authorities overseas, the construction of the stations should be entrusted, when once their design is determined.
It is the planning of the stations which presents the real problem, and upon the nature of its solution the efficiency and the financial results of the Imperial scheme depend. The latest discoveries and developments of wireless science must of course be embodied in it, and full account be taken of the achievements and shortcomings of existing stations, but above all, the whole design must form one unit, each factor determined in correlation with the other factors, each part interlocking, so to speak, with every other part.
If the wireless engineering staff of the Admiralty were larger than it is, and the demands of the navy less than they are, the naval authorities might well have been asked to take a leading part in planning the stations. This, however, is not possible. The Admiralty desires to give the Imperial scheme all the help in its power, but in existing conditions this cannot be more than to place the results of the work of its technicians, and its advice when required, at the disposal of the designing authority.
We are of opinion, therefore, after much consideration, that this authority_can successfully be created in the form of a Wireless Commission, advisory to the Post Office and the overseas construction authorities, whose engineering departments would be responsible, securing the opinions of specialists when necessary, for carrying out the construction of the stations according to the plans formulated by the Wireless Commission,
This Commission need not consist of more than a Chairman and two or three members, one of whom would be a representative of the Post Office, and the others wireless experts of high competence, men whose studies have ranged over the whole field, men acquainted alike with the most eminent technicians, with contemporary research, with the literature of the subject, and with existing stations. A member of the naval wireless engineering staff would be invited to join in the discussion of special problems, and the Cluef Electricity Commissioner would nominate one of his staff to be present when required, to supply information and figures of cost of power plant. The independent members of the Commission would, of course, receive fees, and we think that the official members should receive some remuneration in addition to their departmental salaries.
The Wireless Commission would remain in being until the chain of stations was in operation, when the need or otherwise of its continued existence would be clear, the expectation being that the Commission would then be no longer required.
With such a body responsible for the planuing of the stations, and the Post Office engineering departments undertaking their construction, we believe that an Imperial scheme in full accordance with modern wireless science would be carried out in the most economical manner.
25
49. We are requested to place the recommended stations in their order of urgency A decision of this nature must largely depend upon considerations beyond our present information. It would appear to us, however, that as communication with Egypt will shortly be established by the Post Office Leafield-Cairo arc service, the stations first to be erected should be those in India, Singapore, Hongkong and Australia, in case contracts should not be given out simultaneously for all the seven valve stations recommended and for the completion of Windhuk station. But the decision regarding the last-named will rest with the South African Government, and the Indian and Australian Govern- ments will probably desire to contract for their stations at the same time that the Imperial Government orders its own five stations. Communication with Canada will naturally, as before stated, be the subject of joint decision by the Imperial and Canadian authorities.
50. Mention may be made of an interesting memorandum presented to us by the Geographical Section, General Staff, pointing out that the development of
is adversely affected by their inability to carry out surveys of their territories, and that many colonies an Imperial wireless scheme will enable this to be done, that is, longitudes to be determined, without recourse to the tedious and costly method of Principal Triangula- tion. The aid thus given, it is truly remarked, to the internal development of colonies by promoting that geographical knowledge which is almost a first essential of progress, is an additional cogent argument for the speedy establishment of an Imperial wireless system. We may add that an official proposal for the wireless determination of longitudes, on a world-wide basis, was put forward internationally by the French Bureau des Longitudes last year.
ጻ 18.
SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS.
51. We may now re-state in summary form the conclusions we have reached :—
Proposals for an Imperial wireless chain usually contemplate links of about 4,000 miles each-the distances, for instance, between England and India, and between India and Australia. For these distances all spark systems are
$ 11 (a), b), obsolete, and the high-frequency alternator in its present state of development (e), (d) is costly, difficult to repair, and as yet insufficiently tested in prolonged opera- tion. Therefore the arc system, the most widely used to-day for long-distance wireless communications, would have to be adopted. It is, however, impossible $14, 18. to say beforehand what power would be required at such ranges for a satis- factory commercial wireless service, which we define as a 24-hour a day service, not subject to frequent interruptions and repetitions, reliable, working at high speed, and of a capital cost and annual expenditure such that at rates low enough to attract a large traffic it might speedily become self-supporting,
No satisfactory commercial service, as thus defined, over even half the above
range, is in existence anywhere at the present time.
$ 9.
$ 9, § 4 footnote.
$ 16, 17.
The cost of a pair of stations in England and India, equipped, in about two years, with the smallest arcs likely to effect this communication, would be £615,000, and the annual charges £155,000. Yet no certainty could be felt that this power would be adequate, since no such are is working efficiently $11 (6) anywhere to-day under conditions enabling its efficiency to be judged, and it would be unwise to incur the cost of larger arcs until we are acquainted with the results of the working of an arc of greater power
than any hitherto constructed, shortly to be in operation by the French Government. Moreover, the possibility that the arc system is obsolescent must not be overlooked. We conclude, therefore, that an Imperial wireless chain of 1,000-mile links bridged by are transmission is, alike on technical and economic grounds, for the present inexpedient, and we seek another solution of the problem.
$ 19,
$$ 13, 24.
This we find in the two complemental facts that the chief countries of the Empire can be connected, both commercially and strategically, by links of about 2,000 miles, and that the advance of wireless science has rendered it
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