New Wireless Plant To Cover The World.

New York Times 100 years ago today, October 28, 1912:
Naval Station, Soon to be in Operation on the Banks of the Potomac, Will Have a Radius of 3,000 Miles.SHIPS ALWAYS WITHIN RANGE
Through Stations Now Built or Provided For, Washington Will Be in Touch with All Our Possessions.
    The new naval wireless station at Fort Myer, Va., which, when it is completed, will be one of the most powerful in the world, is expected to be ready for use in a short time. When it is in operation, those who have designed it hope to be in direct wireless communication with London, Berlin, Paris, and other important European cities. Aside from this, though, its chief value to the Government will be the fact that it will be in direct touch with another great wireless station to be erected in Panama, and, by virtue of its powerful apparatus, will make possible communication with our warships, no matter in what part of the North Atlantic they may be. The radius of the new Station will be some 3,000 miles.
    As soon as the new station is ready for use, experiments will be conducted in overland wireless telegraphy, it is hoped to relay transcontinental messages through the great army station at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and through this and other relay stations, to bring the Navy Department in touch with wireless posts in all parts of the world.
    The new station has been built on a beautiful site overlooking the Potomac River. It is not far from Washington, and it is within a mile of the army drill grounds at Fort Myer, Va. There are three towers, the principal one 600 feet, and the other two 450 feet high. The base of the highest tower is 150 feet square, and of the two smaller ones 120 feet. Three artistic brick buildings are attached to the post. One will be used by the officer in command of the station, the second will be the receiving station, and the third will be the transmission building. There will be six or eight operators, in addition to a chief electrician and some twenty students to be appointed from the Naval Service.
    The Army and Navy Register contains this account of the new station:
    The Arlington station will have a 500-cycle transformer. The instruments at this station are guaranteed to work 3,000 miles, regardless of atmospheric conditions. The apparatus was tested some time ago between the station at Brant Rock, Mass., and the scout ships Birmingham and Salem while 600 miles at sea. The experiment was considered entirety satisfactory, as the antenna at Brant Rock is only 450 feet high, and the ship sets were not of high power.
    The erection of the Arlington station is the first step of the navy toward the establishment of a great chain of high-power wireless stations. The navy appropriation law recently enacted contains an appropriation of $1,000,000 for the construction of additional wireless stations. Of this amount the law provides that $400,000 shall be immediately available. As a result six large stations in different parts of the world will be established at once. This guarantees constant and instantaneous intercommunications between the Navy Department and the naval stations of the United States and her possessions and the ships plying the seas, whether they be on the coast of Greenland or off the Falkland Islands, in the Mediterranean, or in the mid-Pacific.
    These proposed stations will be located, one on the Pacific Coast, one in the Canal Zone, one in Hawaii, one in Samoa, one on the Island of Guam, and one in the Philippines. The Pacific Coast station will probably be located at the Mare Island Navy Yard. There is already a, station there, but one of much higher power will probably be installed. It is planned to establish a regular wireless service between this station and a proposed one at Pearl Harbor. At present there is a small station at Honolulu, but its range is short.
    Modern sets are now being installed at nearly all the stations of the United States to replace the instruments which have become antiquated by the rapid development of science. The Navy Department has under consideration the relocation of the Panama station. It is now located at Colon, where it is possible to cover only Atlantic waters. It is intended to change the site inland some distance, so that the range will cover both the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts. This move will make the Panama station one of the most important in the world.
    When the extensive programme has become a reality the sea will no longer be a great wilderness for the vessels of our navy, and Hawaii, Panama, the Philippines, Guam, Samoa, and the United States will be as one, no longer separated, but even in talking distance.
    Rear Admiral Cone, U.S.N., Chief of the Bureau of Steam Engineering in the Navy Department, has general supervision of all radio work for the navy. Lieut. Commander David W. Todd is in immediate charge of this department, and Lieut. E. B. Woodworth is in command of the new station at Fort Myer.