Network.
pp. 29-30 · Read in the full issue
Pacific Radio
How Territories Maintain Touch With the World.
THE British Islands in the Pacific, scattered over vast spaces of ocean, represent the extreme limit of worldly isolation: yet they are bound together by invisible links which permit com munication with the same expedition as between the crowded cities of the world.
Between the Solomon Islands, the Gil bert and Ellice Groups, the Fijis and the mainland of Australia stretch an inter lacing grid or network of wireless chan nels, connecting that great area with the
outside world and each part with the other.
In the early days of radio a few small wireless stations were established by the British Government in Fiji and the sur rounding islands. These were controlled and operated by the British Admiralty from its headquarters in London.
Realising the development and im portance of the various British island possessions in the Pacific and the enter prise manifested by other nations in establishing wireless stations on their island possessions in the Pacific, Mr.
Fisk, managing director of A.W.A., sug gested to the Right Hon. L. S. Amery, then First Lord of the British Admiralty, that Amalgamated Wireless, Ltd. take over from the Imperial Government all the wireless stations in the Fijian group, with the object of modernising and oper ating them as units of the Pacific net work already operated by A.W.A. An agreement was completed between the Imperial Government and the company in 1922 and to-day these stations are equipped in the most modern way.
The speedy and accurate communica tion facilities thereby provided are greatly assisting the Fijian business in terests.
The most important of the Fijian wire less stations is at Suva, which collects and distributes wireless traffic to and from all islands in the North and South Pacific which have wireless communica tion. It handles overseas traffic with Great Britain and the Continent, and North and South America via Sydney Radio and the Beam Wireless Service.
Sydney Radio is also in communication with such important island centres as
Samoa, Tonga, Gilbert and Ellice Is lands, New Caledonia, New Hebrides and Honolulu. Communication is also main tained with the four other Fijian sta tions —Labasa, Savu Savu, Taveuni and Lautoka.
An important radio centre of the Pa cific network is in New Guinea, where the Company’s chief station is located at Bita Paka, near Rabaul. This modern station maintains direct radio communi cation with Sydney and with the follow ing stations; Aitape and Madang, New Guinea; Manus, Admiralty Islands; Ka vieng. New Ireland; Kieta, Bougainville Island; and Wau and Salamaua, on the New Guinea goldfields. It also com municates with the Gilbert and Ellice, Solomon, and Santa Cruz Islands.
At Port Moresby, in Papua, is another unit of the Pacific network. From here communication is effected with Samarai, in Papua, with Thursday Island, and with Cooktown and Townsville, in Aus tralia.
The principal Australian wireless sta tions handling traffic between Australia and the Pacific are located at Sydney, Brisbane and Townsville. These, in turn, are intermediary stations between the Pacific and the Beam Wireless Service connecting Australia with Great Britain, the Continent, and North and South America. Thus the Islands’ resident is able to communicate by wireless with any part of the world.
It will thus be seen that Mr. Fisk’s ideal of a British network in the Pacific is in course of realisation and that Aus tralia is fast becoming the important wireless clearing centre of Pacific com munications.
Mrs. Alan Innes, the well-known and very popular proprietress of the Sala maua Hotel, Salamaua, New Guinea, left Sydney by the “Monterey” on May 31 for San Francisco, en route to Eu rope, where she will spend a well earned holiday. She will be abroad for several months.