Ultra-Short Radio Waves Bent By Marconi in Test for Vatican

Discovery Permitting Transmission to Overcome Curvature of Earth Is Expected by Experts to Revolutionize Air Communication

By The Associated Press

ROME, Aug. 13. — Guglielmo Marconi has made another advance in the science of radio communication, he disclosed today, by “bending” ultra-short radio waves, which heretofore he had been unable to transmit through obstacles.

From his yacht Elettra, in the Gulf of Aranci, Island of Sardinia, he sent word to his collaborator, Marchese Luigi Solari, that messages had been dispatched successfully on fifty-seven-centimeter waves from Rocca di Papa, south of Rome, across the Tyrrhenian Sea to Cape Figaro. in the Gulf of Aranci, а distance of 270 kilometers (168 miles). Portable reflectors were used, communicating clearly both by radio telegraph and radio telephone.

Today's discovery permits transmission on ultra-short waves in such a manner as to overcome the earth's curvature. This, said Senator Marconi, is proof that the ultra-short wave is not definitely limited by all obstacles.

His associates attributed great importance to the discovery because heretofore it had been possible to use ultra-short wave communication only between two points in a line of vision.

The waves would not pass through houses, trees and similar objects. Senator Marconi has been trying for a year to "bend" the waves.

Experts here said that if he had overcome the obstacle of the earth's curvature he could overcome other obstacles, thus greatly extending the possibilities of ultra-short wave communication. This method, they said, eventually would revolutionize radio transmission, for it is infinitely cheaper and simpler than methods in use at present.

The inventor has been pushing his experiments recently to apply them in a first installation for Pope Pius XI between the Vatican and the papal summer home at Castel Gandolfo.

May Effect Economies, Experts Say

New York broadcasting engineers expressed great interest yesterday in Senator Marconi's achievement. One said that his development might make possible great economies in transmission and avoid interference among thousands of stations.

A. B. Chamberlain, chief engineer of the Columbia Broadcasting System. said: "Until now, utilization of the ultra-high-frequency band of radio waves has been possible only between though the change will probably be gradual. Use of the ultra-high frequency band, with its consequent short wave length will make possible great two points in a line of vision. If Marconi's discovery has been correctly interpreted in the press reports, an entirely new field of radio and television transmission has been opened up, economies in transmission by thousands of stations without interference."

Charles W. Horn, general engineer of the National Broadcasting Company and a pioneer in the development of international radio communication, who was formerly associated with Marconi, made the following comment: "If the press reports correctly interpret Marconi's achievement, Mr. Marconi has done a wonderful thing, something not believed possible heretofore. It is also probable that he has developed some new principle unknown to other engineers. If this is true, the achievement ranks with the original development of wireless telegraphy."

Tesla Comments on Announcement

Nikola Tesla, famous electrical inventor and a pioneer in radio development, when asked about the feasibility of bending ultra-short electrical waves, said last night at his apartment at the Hotel Governor Clinton:

"That ultra-short waves can pass around obstacles such as presented by the spherical shape of the earth is nothing new. We are telephoning with short waves to the greatest terrestrial distance without difficulty. But this is only due to the fact that the ether or universal medium which transmits the waves is not a solid body as assumed by Maxwell and Hertz, but a gas just like any other, except that it is of inconceivably greater tenuity. This was established by me in experiments I made with powerful high potential vacuum tubes in 1897.

"That the ether is a gas is most fortunate, for if it were a solid body, transmitting transverse oscillations, the signalling by short electrical waves would be very much circumscribed. As I have announced on previous occasions, I have experimented with waves from one to two millimeters long, and I have found them still capable of affecting receivers at a considerable distance from the rectilinear path. Furthermore, it is well known that short waves are reflected from the upper strata of the air, and this fact has been made use of in transmission to greater distances.

"Much work in this direction has been lone by experts in this country. There is no particular advantage of using ultra-short waves, because they are less economical to produce and propagate preponderatingly in a straight line. For this and other reasons their practical use is of limited value.

"I believe, though, that in time we will discover chemical methods of producing very short electrical waves in an extremely cheap and simple manner, without my complicated apparatus, which their generation now requires. I have done some experimenting in that direction, and am hopeful that either through my own efforts or those of others this problem may be solved, in which case a very simple and inexpensive apparatus, meeting the practical requirements, could be provided for general use.

"I regret very much that wireless experts throughout the world cling to the Hertzian theory and continue to build apparatus conformably to that idea instead of designing the transmitter for the transmission of sound waves, which would insure incomparably better results."