To Ratify Wireless Treaty.

New York Times 100 years ago today, January 27, 1913:
Thirty-one Signatories Soon Will Approve Convention.
    WASHINGTON, Jan. 26.— Ratifications of the wireless telegraph treaty signed in London July 5 last, it is thought, will be exchanged in the British capital in a few weeks by the thirty-one signatory powers. The Senate's ratification of the treaty a few days ago paved the way for that formality, as practically all the other Governments were understood to have approved the treaty, to become effective July 1 next. By that convention the important maritime nations of the world have linked themselves to obtain the widest range of international usefulness for the wireless.
    One of the most important provisions is that compelling the free interchange of communication between ships and coast stations employing different systems of radio appliances. With the Titanic disaster fresh in the minds of the delegates, all opposition to that idea faded.
    It is provided that the transmission of long-distance wireless messages shall be interrupted for three minutes at the end of every quarter hour to permit all stations to listen for distress calls. That was an American proposition based, according to the report of the American delegation to Secretary Knox, "upon the fact that at least two steamships which were nearer the Titanic than the Carpathia were prevented from hearing the distress calls of the sinking vessel by reason of the fact that the continuous transmission of press news prevented the Titanic's messages from being received by ships fitted with radio apparatus of limited capacity."
    Other provisions relate to the transmission of weather reports, measures to prevent the interference of long distance with ordinary wave lengths, compelling the installation of wireless on certain classes of ships and the maintenance of a continuous watch for distress signals.