Radio age (Jan-Dec 1926)

RADIO AGE for October, 1926 The Magazine of the Hour 15 Radio to Patrol 11,000 Miles of Railroad Trackage Chicago, [Milwaukee and St. Paul to Install Short Wa v e T rdns\m i iters RECENT announcement by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway that it was about to install radio communication over its 11,000 miles of trackage has aroused nationwide interest in the project. The press of the country, commenting upon the idea, in many instances goes so far as to prophesy that it may mark a new era in the nation's transportation history. This important new adjunct to the ordinary telegraph systems used by railroads will mean an uninterrupted communication at all times. Only operating ofcials of a railroad can fully realize what this will mean. Tornadoes, floods, landslides, washouts and other disasters which prostrate land communication will not affect the radio. During the past two or three years, newspapers throughout the country have recorded a number of instances where storms have isolated a whole community or section. Then somewhere in that vicinity cut off from all communication an amateur radio operator would get busy with his little transmitting set. Soon the mysterious ether waves were carrying a series of staccato dots and dashes that always began the message with the most electrifying word in the language — Help! Startled by this sudden dramatic appeal shooting out of the air, other amateurs, perhaps hundreds of miles away, would nervously start recording the message. Last year, when the greatest tornado ever recorded wiped out nearly a thousand lives and left a path of unparalleled destruction across Missouri, Illinois and Indiana, it was an amateur radio operator who got out the first appeal for help. It was another amateur who received the message and startled the world with his report. Lieut. F. H. Schnell, who has pioneered in short wave work, as he appeared on his recent naval cruise to the Antipodes in the interest of naval-amateur long distance work On another occasion a great mine explosion occurred in an area that for hours had been cut off from communication with the outside by a blizzard. Again, it was one of these legionnaires of the air who got out the message calling for doctors and nurses to be rushed to the scene of the disaster. The general public little realizes that perhaps tonight the silent starlit ether may be carrying a message from some lone amateur that tomorrow will startle millions. The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway is the first to take advantage of the science largely developed by this army of 20,000 American radio amateurs and apply it to a great transportation system. At Strategic Points AT strategic points on its 2,200 mile main line from Chicago to Seattle it will establish stations for transmitting and receiving code on short wave lengths of 20, 40 and 80 meters. Thus will be put into operation for the first time in history a complete radio communications service on a railroad. It will be linked at all times with the great net of amateur stations, so that its operations will be doubly checked, and, as far as human ingenuity can make it, practically infallible. Like many other discoveries that have proved revolutionary in their effects, the new mode of railway communication is comparatively simple when reduced to its essentials. It is now possible for the first time to describe in detail the transmitting and receiving sets to be installed by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway. They were planned and designed by F. H. Schnell, former traffic manager of the American Radio Relay League and who last year, while with the Pacific Fleet, conducted remarkable demonstrations on the practicability of short wave radio off Samoa and Hawaii. The success of these experiments led officials of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway to take up with Schnell the feasibility of applying short wave radio to railroad communications. At their request he devoted lengthy study to the problem, and finally evolved the sets described below as the best adapted for the railroad's radio communication service.