THE FIRST WIRELESS EQUIPPED MOTORVAN.
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A Vehicle Fitted with an Installation which Has Enabled the Delivery Service of an American Bakery Concern to be Improved.
THE recent interest aroused in matters appertaining to wireless telegraphy and its application in unusual spheres of employment is, in itself, sufficient to direct attention to what is claimed to be the first wirelessequipped motor vehicle in regular use.
The Kolb Bakery, of Philadelphia, U.S.A., recently equipped one of their Antocar lorries with a complete wireless outfit. This experiment has been made with the view of facilitating, and constantly improving, the remarkable de
livery service by which the company's bread is supplied to thousands of consumers daily.
The wireless outfit is oom,plete in every detail, and is a highly interesting indication of the successful operation of wireless telephony under conditions which only a few months ago would have seemed impossible. The illustrations which we publish herewith indicate how limited are the aerials on top of the lorry. The earth is accomplished by connecting a wire to the frame of the vehicle. The apparatus inside is a complete wireless receiving outfit, having a detector with three stages of amplification and a Magnavox horn attachment, by means of which wireless concerts can be heard by a large number of people. The entire apparatus is mounted on a separate set of cushioning springs, protecting it from road shocks when the van is in motion.
It is said to he possible to receive messages just as clearly when the van is in motion as when it is standing still. It is now literally possible for the Kolb Bakery to telephone to any one of the several brciadeasting stations in Philadelphia and ask that station to notify the driver of their vehicle fitted with wireless that they wish to get in touch with him, and the driver, no matter where he might be, if he had the headpiece over his ears and was tuned in, would get the message. Whilst the driver could not reply by wireless, it would be possible for him immediately to get in touch with his home office by an ordinary telephone. This gives the bakery a degree of control over their delivery service which it has hitherto been impossible for any company to achieve.
The originals of the pictures on this page were taken within a quarter of a mile of a big naval wireless station. While these pictures were being taken this station was booming out its worklwide messages, but it was possible for the small apparatus in the lorry, standing almost in the shadow of the station, either to listen to the code messages which the Government was sending to ships at sea, or to tune them out entirely and relay to an interested audience the concert which was then being broadcasted from a local departmental store. The development of this scheme presents most interesting possibilities.