Wireless Wizard to Work Wonders (1910)

The original scan of this article is at: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025121/1910-12-30/ed-1/seq-3/.

Hawaiian Gazette, December 30, 1910, pages 3:
WIRELESS WIZARD TO WORK WONDERS ______
Beach Thompson Wants to Try Out Invention of Poulsen--Talk With Coast. ______
    According to Beach Thompson, who is in Honolulu looking over the wireless telegraph field, the apparatus of all other companies will be ready for the scrap pile when the Poulsen Wireless Company gets started properly
    "We have a system," remarked Mr. Thompson last night, "that can be tuned properly and which defies any other system to cut in and receive our messages. A few weeks ago the manager of the United Wireless Company asked me to let him know when we were sending as he would try to get some of our messages. When I told him that we had been constantly--day and night--sending and receiving, he threw up his hands.
    "We broke all records by sending a message over one thousand miles on land and the waves had to cross or go through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We can send three hundred words a minute at present, and only our own receiving apparatus can take the message. Danish Invention     "The Poulsen wireless is the result of years of work on the part of Vladmire Poulsen of Copenhagen, and he started on the same lines as Marconi did years ago. After much research Poulsen decided that Marconi was on the wrong track and he worked for a long time on the invention that has now turned out to be the greatest marvel of the age.
    "The waves from the other wireless systems start out big but dwindle away just as the ripples created by a stone thrown into a pond. The waves from the Poulsen wireless maintain their length over the full distance they are sent. That is the difference and the reason that our system is so wonderful. Wireless to Coast     "I am representing eight well known men of California, and two hundred thousand dollars have been paid in by those gentlemen and myself to develop and try out the Poulsen system. I came to Hawaii to try to get an opportunity to attach my special machine to the wireless station at Kahuku, and from there rise San Francisco. I am confident that, day or night, fine or stormy, I can maintain communication with the mainland. Everybody knows what that means, and I am hoping to within a short time have the trial made."
    When asked about the wireless telephone that was worked between the shore and the steamer Sierra for some time after the ship had sailed from San Francisco three trips ago, Mr. Thompson declared that wireless phone messages were sent daily from Sacramento to San Francisco, and that the conversation was as clear as if wires connected the phones. The messages to the Sierra were caught also by the shore stations, and in Thompson's mind there is no doubt that the wireless phone has come to stay. Newspaper Service     "At New York there will be established a station that will operate a press association and send out news matter broadcast to hundreds of newspapers. Only the receiving stations that are tuned to our system will be able to get the messages," said Mr. Thompson, and then continued: "If we establish a station in Hawaii the newspapers here can be served in the same way through our San Francisco station."
    As illustrating the wonderful properties of the Poulsen system, Mr. Thompson told of many experiments that had been carried out by himself. He is a graduate of Stanford University and has been engaged in the electrical business for years.
    "The electric current that passes through the Poulsen apparatus is divided up into a tremendous number of cycles or pulsations. Once I attached a wire to an ordinary live wire that would have given a great shock to anyone who touched it. Still, after the current had passed through Poulsen's machine a man was told to hold a wire and hold the hand of another man. The current was so reduced that there was no feeling of shock, yet a cigar was lighted from a carbon held in the second man's hand. The current went through the two men but at such a rate owing to the pulsations being increased, that no shock was felt; the nerves could not appreciate the shocks." Mountains No Trouble     Mr. Thompson said that he is sure that mountains or land will not interfere with the waves from the Poulsen wireless.
    "If we wanted to we could establish stations on these islands that would work day or night, and reach any point irrespective of the high hills and mountains. However, we are not after that kind of business, and mean to stretch out for the larger game," wound up Mr. Thompson.
    The importance of the wireless system that can be properly tuned, and that will maintain service constantly without being interfered with by land or water, and which will be developed into a wireless telephone in the near future, can not be denied. Beach Thompson and his partners have a wonderful invention that must spread all over the world, if it does all that is claimed for it.