1914: NZ wireless stations and operators praised

The 10,000 ton liner SS Sonoma
The 10,000 ton liner SS Sonoma

Northern Advocate, 8 August 1914, p 5

LONG-DISTANCE WIRELESS.
TRIBUTE TO THE NEW ZEALAND STATIONS

Mr LVR Carmine, a New Zealander and chief wireless operator on the SS Sonoma on the homeward run from Sydney to San Francisco, picked up the Wellington Wireless Station north of the Equator at a distance of 3500 miles.

Mr Carmine is a son of Mr LJ Carmine, Officer in Charge of Telegraphs at Gisborne, and is now on the SS China, which is running between San Francisco, Honolulu and Hong Kong.

He says that the Wellington, Awanui and Bluff stations are a credit to New Zealand, and can be heard at great distances, and through the strongest of atmospherical disturbances. It is a pleasure to hear and work with such crisp and musical notes as the New Zealand stations can boast of, and with the capable operators who work them. When all other stations are drowned out by strong atmospherical conditions, Wellington’s Awanui’s, and the Bluff’s singing spark can be heard to great advantage at long distances.

“The nearest we ever get to New Zealand,” he says, “is about 1100 miles, and at that range these stations come in as if we were not more than fifty miles away. We always hear Awanui working long before we pick up Suva and Fiji.”

In one instance, when five hundred miles from Sydney, he was receiving a message from Sydney, Wellington came in so strong as to drown Sydney out.

Mr Carmine has recently established a new mark in wireless, getting a message from south of the Equator to San Francisco direct, achieving the latest American long-distance record.

Mr Carmine was a telegraphist in the Wellington telegraph office before he left to take up wireless.

(Paragraph spacing added and punctuation corrected to improve readability)