Radio Writer

Two men in Detroit last week were busy running back and forth between two rooms of the Wardell Hotel. They were demonstrating for the first time a new radio typewriter, called a Watsongraph, to representatives from the U. S. Government, the Michigan State Police, the Press. One man was the hotel owner, white-haired Fred Wardell, president of Eureka Vacuum Cleaner Co. He had furnished the money to exploit the new invention. The other man. who inspected his guests owlishly through horn-rimmed glasses, was the inventor, Glenn W. Watson, onetime salesman. Mr. Watson, new to inventing, had learned about electricity only three years ago while he played with his son's electrical toys.

In one hotel room Mr. Wardell and Inventor Watson had set up the sending set, a typewriter connected by special apparatus with a radio transmitter. The receiving set, also a typewriter and radio, was located in the second room. A message was typed on the sending machine. Guests were amazed to hear the receiving apparatus within a fraction of a second start to click out the message which it had received from the air.

Most important parts of the Watsongraph are two revolving discs with the letters of the alphabet around their edges. In both sending and receiving sets these discs revolve at the same speed so that the letters are in the same relative positions. When A is struck on the first machine and a radio impulse is released, the receiving set, because of the perfect synchronization of the two, can receive the impulse and send it only to the A typewriter key.

Inventor Watson expects his machine to be used in railroad trains, airplanes, battleships. Because the Watsongraph can be adjusted so that eavesdroppers will obtain only nonsense syllables, he thinks that policemen will find it useful. It promises to be cheaper than the teletype machines now widely in use, which require costly leased wires. But it will be limited according to the availability of radio wavelengths.

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