Barrier Miner A Priest and his partner 3

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From the Brrier Miner (Broken Hill) 27 June 1910

WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY TESTS.

A PRIEST AND HIS PARTNER.

The Sydney correspondent of the "Age" recently wrote: -

ln view of the prominence recently given to Mr. Pike's experiments in wireless telegraphy at
Arncliffe, it may come as a surprise to many people to learn that for months past two other
amateur experimenters have been at work in Sydney doing all that Mr. Pike has done and
bent on doing more if only they might be allowed to hide their light under a bushel. " ln the
present stage of our experiments," said Father Archibald Shaw, of the Sacred Heart Brothers
at Randwick: "publicity is the one thing we are most anxious to avoid." Father Shaw was
encountered in an outhouse in the garb of a mechanic. A peculiar odor pervaded the room,
which was littered with machinery and electrical appliances, There was the whirr of a lathe
which tho priest had just left. A young man worked at a bench with piles of coils in front of
him, and another young man stood with a receiver over his ears before a collection of curious
instruments at the end of a room where, through an open window, a couple of wires ran out to
the aerial in the garden of two young men. One was Mr. Moroney, the wireless operator of
R.M.S. Makura, and the other Mr. R. Wilkinson, Father Shawls partner in this interesting
hobby. How Father Shaw came to interest himself in wireless experiments is easily explained.
Before taking holy orders he had been a telegraphist in the G.P.O., Sydney, and meeting with
Mr. Wilkin-son, a wireless enthusiast of several years standing, he needed no inducement to
undertake with him a hobby which might lead to results. Father Shaw also admits to being "a
bit of an engineer."

lt was while prospecting in the Labrador and Hudson Bay territory three years ago that Mr.
Wilkinson, who is an electrical engineer, accidentally discovered that by the wireless system
he could detect traces of ore in the earth. He had since given close study to wireless
telegraphy. The equipment at Randwick is the work of Father Shaw and Mr. Wilkinson.

They make their own machinery and instruments. Up to the present they have not been able
to transmit messages over a greater distance than 250 miles, but they are busy at work on
gear which will enable them to talk 1500 miles away. But though they have not yet succeeded
in making themselves heard at any great distance, they have heard others with more powerful
instruments, as, for instance, the Powerful at Fremantle, and R.M.S. Makura at Suva. Mr.
Wilkinson would like to produce, if possible, an Australian system of wireless telegraphy -that
is to say, an improvement upon other systems. One of the greatest needs in wireless is a
perfect recorder. In ordinary telegraphy, we have the tape machine, which gives us the
message written. Father Shaw and his youthful partner would like to provide a similar
recorder in wireless, and it is said that their experiments so far prove that the thing is feasible
enough.

The progress of wireless telegraphy in Australia would seem to depend in some measure
upon tho assistance accorded to private experimenters by the Government. The naval
authorities naturally do not welcome intruders in a sphere which has hitherto been their
monopoly. They want the sky to themselves when warship talks to warship across the ether.
In America an arrangement has been come to whereby the Admiralty has the free use of the
sky for the first half of each hour, commercial business and private experimenters taking
precedence the next half hour.