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AN interesting experiment in wireless telegraphy was tried recently in Los Angeles when an electric automobile was used to supply power for flashing messages from a portable wireless station. The little car was run up the steep grade of Lookout Mountain in the outskirts of the city and a thirty-foot steel mast was speedily erected and rigged with the necessary guys and wires. Then the operator took his place at the keyboard and sent out a call which brought responses from amateur stations in various parts of the city and from Point Loma station more than one hundred miles away. These answers were disregarded, however, as operator Ryan was trying for the United Wireless station in the center of the city, which answered within a short time. Then the following message directed to Mayor Alexander of Los Angeles was flashed: "Have pleasure of sending you the first message ever transmitted by portable wireless station using electric automobile via United Wireless from Lookout Mountain."
This feat is of more than passing interest as it demonstrated the possibility of rapid communication by wireless from an electric motor equipped with portable mast, etc. The experiment was planned and carried out by Mr. W. B. Kerrick, an electric engineer, who wished to clinch his argument that you could run most anywhere in an electric car and still keep in touch with home by wireless. |
