Navy Has World's Most Powerful Wireless Station.

New York Times 100 years ago today, October 20, 1912:
First of a Chain of Seven Which Will Girdle the Earth and Keep the Department at Washington in Direct Touch With Vessels of Our Fleet Wherever They May Be.    TOPPING the summit of an irregular, red-clay, bush-dotted hill immediately south of the Government military reservation at Fort Myer, Virginia, and within eye range of the western front of the Capitol in Washington are the triplet peaks of the most powerful radio station in the world. Scheduled to be placed in commission on Nov. 1, this plant, built by the United States Government, is the first of a chain of seven powerful stations which will bring the Navy Department into direct communication with the fleet throughout the length and breadth of four of the seven seas.
    Only when craft of the Navy are in the Arctic, Antarctic and Indian Oceans will they be beyond the reach of messages from these seven stations, which are to be at San Francisco, Honolulu, Manila, Guam, Panama, and Samoa besides Washington.
    The British Government and the Marconi Company have been engaged for more than a year in negotiations for a wireless chain to girdle the British Empire, linking Whitehall with John Bull's colonies and dependencies in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas, while the German Government has erected at Nauen a great central wireless station whose invisible fingers will reach out toward her colonies and trade routes. These three chains of great international stations will overlap so as to surround the globe.
    This new American naval wireless station of enormous power — officially known as the Arlington Radio Station — is in private communication, by special telephone connection, with the Navy Department in Washington, besides having physical union with the Postal and Western Union Telegraph companies. It is the first of its type and power erected anywhere in the world, the first 100-kilowatt station in America, and the very latest word in naval radio-telegraphy. Sound-proof, protected against vibration, even with noises baffled when they attempt to sneak into the operating room through the air-ventilating passages, equipped with telautographic apparatus, and as nearly stormproof as man can make it, this new station at Arlington will have a radius of 3,000 miles under ordinary sending conditions and more than 4,000 miles in "freakish" atmosphere, which sometimes favors wireless operators.
    From the Arlington station radio messages will be sent to vessels stationed beyond the Azores to the western shores of Europe, to Madeira, Cape Verde, the mouth of the Amazon, Panama, the Galapagos Islands off the western coast of Ecuador, and Magdalena Bay. The radius will embrace also San Francisco and the whole stretch of the California, Washington, and Oregon coasts, the lonely wastes of Upper Canada, Hudson Bay, and the southern nose of Greenland. The entire Caribbean Sea, all of the West Indies, most of Peru, all of Colombia, Venezuela, the three Guianas, and the watershed of the Amazon, to say nothing of all of the United States, Mexico, and the Central American republics will be within the range of the new Arlington station.
    Similar stations will be built by the Navy Department at Panama and San Francisco, the former bringing Washington within striking distance, under a single relay, and also Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Callao, Valparaiso, and most of South America, whence Honolulu will be reached.
    From Honolulu another station of similar power will relay messages to almost every part of the Pacific Ocean, Guam and Samoa, and these islands will have equally powerful stations through which Australia and Manila will be brought into direct radio touch with America. What all this means may be better grasped from the statement that this string of naval wireless stations will be able to send radio messages, which cannot now be received there, to the heart of Thibet and the unexplored regions of western Mongolia, with only four relays from Washington, these being at San Francisco, Honolulu, Guam, and Manila.

Wide Area of the Earth Covered.
    With a sending radius of 3,000 miles under ordinary conditions of weather, the Arlington station will spark out messages simultaneously over 28,274,400 square miles of land and sea. When the other six of the high-power naval stations have been established in the Isthmian Canal Zone, on the California coast, in the Hawaiian Islands, in American Samoa, on the Island of Guam, and in the Philippine Islands, each of 100 kilowat capacity and a radius of 3,000 miles, the Navy Department will be linked with its fleet and the maritime world by a chain of towers whose electrical waves will spread out over an aggregate of 198,390,800 square miles of continent and ocean.
    The Government already has stations of 35-kilowat power at Colon and Guantanamo with a sending radius of 1,000 miles under ordinary weather conditions and capable of covering more than 30,000,000 square miles. So that, all told, the completion of these new stations of the Arlington type will give the Navy Department dominion over more than 237,000,000 square miles of soil and water. The spheres of these central stations overlap, and the net aggregate of space actually covered by the wireless radiations will be somewhat less than 237,000,000 square miles, though the deduction for overlapping would have to be computed by a lightning prodigy in spherical trigonometry.
    The erection of the six other stations at Guam, Manila, Honolulu, Panama, Samoa, and San Francisco to complete this miracle of modern communication is no dream conjured up by ambitious naval experts and dependent upon the whims of a Congress concerned chiefly with politics and oratory for home consumption. Rear Admiral Hutch I. Cone, Chief of the Bureau of Steam Engineering, and Lieut. Commander David W. Todd, wireless expert of that bureau, went before the two Naval Committees last Winter with so complete and comprehensive a scheme of radio communication that Congress was convinced, and it authorized an appropriation of $1,000,000 for the six other high-power radio stations to be built after the model of the one just going into commission at Arlington, Va. During the coming year Rear Admiral Cone will have authority to spend $400,000 of this appropriation. The stations at San Francisco and Panama will be built next, that at Samoa coming last in the present scheme of construction.
    Contrary to premature announcements the Arlington station has not been operated. Although practically ready, it must receive a few finishing touches and have its paraphernalia articulated before any messages will be sent. But its towers — one rising 600 feet into the air, flanked by two which are each only 150 lower — were completed in September and since then an officer in command of a detachment of enlisted electricians has been in charge of the station installing the machinery.
    The station at Arlington has been placed under the command of Lieut. Edwin B. Woodsworth, who will have charge of a force of twelve enlisted men, of whom ten are already on duty. Within two weeks they will be ready to test out the plant and after that to send radiograms to naval and merchant vessels throughout the North Atlantic and West Indian waters, as well as to all land stations in this country. At a designated hour daily messages covering official business with the fleet are to be radiated to American warships. Daily hydrographic reports, notices to mariners acquainting them with the existence of derelicts and icebergs or other information, will be sent to merchant vessels in the steamer lanes.
    Plans for the construction of the Arlington station were initiated more than four years ago, and originally contemplated utilizing the apex of the Washington Monument for naval radio telegraphy. So many persons protested against this use of the monument that Col. Roosevelt, then President, called a halt on the project and ordered the Bureau of Equipment, which was in charge of naval wireless matters at the time, to draft plans for the erection of a steel tower on the banks of the Potomac. Again objections were raised against the building of any huge mast in the vicinity of the Washington Monument that might overshadow or detract from its dignity. Several years elapsed, pending legislation by Congress. The authority was granted finally only on Aug. 2 last for the use by the Navy Department of a tract of thirteen acres, which was sliced from the army reservation at Fort Myer, Va., and transferred to the Bureau of Steam Engineering for use as a site for the Arlington station.
    Meanwhile an experimental tower had been constructed at Brant's Rock, Mass., to enable the naval wireless expert to determine the type of station to be established at Arlington. As soon as Rear Admiral Cone obtained assurances that the Arlington site would be available, he was ready to proceed with his plans. These involved the building of three steel lattice-work towers at the corners of a triangular foundation around a central receiving and sending station and power house. The westernmost of these towers is the tallest. It is 600 feet high, rising from a broad base like the Eiffel Tower, by means of four steel legs which are 150 feet apart at the ground, to a level of 150 feet, and then upward on graceful lines, like the Washington Monument. The two lower towers, standing northeast and southeast of the main shaft, and of similar design, but only 450 feet high, have struts which are 125 feet apart which slant in rapidly to the 150-foot level.
    The three towers are connected at their tops by a series of wires from which the messages will be radiated. These same wires will pick up incoming messages. Unlike the German system of cage-top wire-stringing, the Arlington antennae — as the wires are called technically — are strung in a flattop arrangement in the same plane but not parallel to the ground. A telegraph cable connects this aerial network of wires with the receiving and sending room within the power house.
    Only one other similar structure in the world is as high from the ground as the central tower at Arlington and that is the great wireless steel tower at Nauen, near Potsdam, Germany, which was completed last February and is able to communicate with America. Unlike the Arlington arrangement, the Nauen station has a single steel tower, 650 feet in height, around which spread like umbrella ribs a series of thirteen wooden masts, each 128 feet high, from the peaks of which antennae 650 feet long reach to the pinnacle of the central tower.
    Until the Arlington station was built, the largest one in America was that now in the service of the Marconi company at Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, which was opened in the Fall of 1907 with a message from Privy Councillor Lord Avebury, formerly Sir John Lubbock, sent from the Marconi station at Clifden, Ireland, to the New York Times. The Cape Breton station consists of four towers, each built up to a height of 215 feet at the angles of a square, the side of which is about seventy yards, and connected with a multiplicity of wires.
    To enable the Arlington station to have its contemplated sending radius of 3,000 miles a very powerful electrical plant is necessary. What is technically described as the synchronous spark system is utilized. The apparatus for generating this is placed in a large central transmitter, or machinery room, constituting a building standing by itself between two double-story wings in which the operating rooms are placed, with living quarters for the detachment of thirteen men who will live constantly at the station, sleeping there as well as eating.
    To avoid smoke, dust, and vibration the power for the operation of the plant is derived from the electric conduits of the City of Washington. This power drives a 200-horse-power electric motor, which in turn drives what is described as a one hundred kilowat 500-cycle alternating generating plant. On the shaft of this generator is a complicated sparking arrangement which produces the sparks used in sending from the antennae aloft. Two currents one of which is primary and of 100 volts, the other secondary and of 12,500 volts, are produced by this generator, the primary circuit being broken by the operator's key in the sending of messages.
    The primary current passes into a novel transformer, which "steps up," and is increased into a high current of 12,500 volts in the secondary circuit, and that is where the sparking takes place in a peculiar spiked wheel that makes 3,000 revolutions a minute. The induction and capacity apparatus are also of novel construction and are used in regulating the wave lengths of the wireless messages.
    The new radio-communication act enacted by Congress at its recent session prescribes the length of the wave which may be used for commercial or for naval and official purposes, these wave lengths harmonizing with the requirements of the Berlin International Radio Treaty which the Senate ratified last Spring.

Shut Off Completely from Noise.
    The two wings of the station are separated by short vestibules from the central machinery plant. These vestibules are wooden. The connections of the vestibules with the brick work are padded with linofelt which takes up the vibration from the machinery plant and avoids corresponding complications in the operating rooms. There are two of these rooms. One is occupied by the radio-operators, the other by those who man the telephone and telegraph wires connecting the station with the outside world. The radio-operators' room is unique. It is built somewhat upon the style of a huge refrigerator. It is absolutely sound-proof and when its door is closed the radio-operator on duty cannot be bothered by any sound from without or vibrations.
    The only entrance into the radio-operating room is through a double refrigerator door. The room has no windows, is artificially lighted and ventilated. Even the air used in doing this is sound-proof, as it passes through a series of air ducts in which "baffle plates" are strung so as to baffle any noise that may attempt to creep with the ventilation into the radio operating room. These "baffle plates" keep the air silent. Within arm's reach of the radio-operator are control levers for use in shifting from the receiving to the transmitting switches while engaged in transmitting messages and during severe electrical disturbances.
    A separate room has been set apart for use by operators of the land wires. Connecting it with the sound-proof radio operating room is a telautograph. This is a clever little instrument by which a message written by the radio-operator while being received from the 650-foot tower is simultaneously reproduced by a mechanical pencil upon a second pad in front of the operator in the land wire operating room. As fast as the radio-receiver writes a message it is sent by the telautograph to the other operating room, where the outside operator relays it to its destination. When a message is to be sent by wireless it is not taken through the refrigerator door into the radio operating room, but is laid down there by the outside operator through use of the telautograph.
    The outside operating room does not have to be storm and vibration proof and is connected with the outside world in three ways: by public telegraph, and private and public telephone. There is a private telephone wire leading direct from this outside operating room into the Bureau of Navigation in the Navy Department. This avoids any leak of official messages through use of the city telephone service. Should anything happen to this official wire the plant has another telephone connection through the regular city switchboard. Within reach of this outside operator are keys connected with the telegraph systems of the Postal and Western Union companies, by means of which any wireless message may be relayed over land wires to any part of the united States.
    As the Arlington plant, when in full operation under rules to be prescribed by the Department of Commerce and Labor and the Navy Department by Congressional sanction, will be allowed to handle radio messages for the commercial world and private individuals when not utilized to full capacity by the Government, these telegraphic connections are a very important feature of the station. It is also the only radio station that may now be built in Washington, since the new radio law bars the erection of any station within a radius of fifty miles which might interfere with the operation of the Arlington plant.

Four Hours' Duty at a Stretch.
    To man the station at Arlington, twelve enlisted men are necessary, as it will be open for messages day and night, all but two of whom are expert electricians, radio operators and telegraphers specially trained for this service at the Naval Electrician School at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The duty is very exacting and requires the service of men of a high order of intelligence. The operators in the radio room must wear head-phones, fitting snugly over each ear every second of the time they are on duty.
    There is no way in which a wireless call upon a radio station may be visually displayed. The operator must be "listening in" all the time and eagerly for the call number of his station. He may hear all sorts of messages or parts of them passing, but pays attention mainly to his call number. The work is exhausting in a plant of this size. The tours of duty are necessarily short.
    At Arlington there will be six watches of four hours each during every twenty-four. Each operator in the radio room will serve a tour of four hours' duty on, followed by eight hours off, at the end of which he again dons the head-phone. Under this arrangement three operators are required every day for the radio room and the corresponding set of three men for the outside land wire operating room, a total of six men. There will be also four extra operators for emergency use, and in addition a yeoman of the navy for clerical work and an enlisted machinist.
    Outside electrical mechanics were not permitted to install the machinery of the plant. Although it was built by contract it was assembled in the station by the enlisted electricians and operators under the personal direction of Lieut. Woodworth. Unlike most commercial operators, these enlisted men must be qualified to make any repairs to the machinery, so as to be able to mend any part of a radio plant on a naval vessel at sea in time of war. A commercial vessel, with its radio plant seriously disabled in mid-Atlantic, might manage to get along until it reached port for repairs, but a battleship, in the first line of defense, sailing with a fleet under orders to discover and destroy the enemy, cannot return to a navy yard for such purpose, and the fate of a great battle may hinge upon the ability of men aboard that warship to mend any part of its radio equipment immediately prior to the conflict.
    The Arlington station will not be able to receive messages from the distance to which it can send them; at least not from every plant with which it may communicate. The plant at Arlington is powerful enough to receive any message that may reach it. But in the beginning of its existence few, if any, of the great stations will be able to send messages regularly a like distance under ordinary conditions, and few craft, even under the most favorable weather, are able to send a message over a thousand miles.
    The best naval radio stations on shore are of 30 kilowat capacity, as compared with 100 kilowat power at Arlington, and no battleship has a plant more powerful than 30 kilowats, while most naval vessels have 10 kilowat plants. The 35 kilowat plant may send a message 1,000 miles under ordinary weather conditions, and 2,300 miles in exceedingly good weather, but this latter can only be done when the atmosphere is what radio experts describe as "freakish," which is sometimes only once a year.
    A vessel with a 10 kilowat naval radio plant may send a message 800 miles, under ordinary circumstances, and 2,000 or more miles when the atmosphere is freakish. With a sending radius of 3,000 miles in ordinary weather, the Arlington station is expected to have a sending radius of four or five thousand miles in freak weather, and it is thought by Rear Admiral Cone that sometime during its history the Arlington station may experience a peculiar condition of weather which might enable it to send even as far as Japan.