as the fleet steamed west from pearl harbour, its movements were widely reported in the media as "wireless messages" and "marconigrams". but the implied directness was not representative and the messages had to almost circumnavigate the globe due to the lack of receiving facilities in australasia, coupled together with the british admiralty's refusal to communicate with non-marconi systems: how wireless messages were obtained. mr. henry m. collins (general manager for australasia of reuter's telegraph company, limited) wrote to us under date melbourne, august 6:— "as a good deal of curiosity has been aroused by the wireless telegrams received by this company from the american fleet during the past few days, it may be of interest to the public to know how the information has been obtained. for some time past endeavours have been in progress to get into touch with the battleships before their arrival at auckland for which port they steamed direct from honolulu. it was at first attempted to establish communication through the good offices of the british admiral; but it was found on enquiry that h.m.s. powerful could not exchange wireless messages with the american vessels, presumably because different systems are employed. during last week the united states storeship glacier arrived at suva, and on friday we learned from our correspondent there that efforts would be made to speak with our representative on board one of the battleships on tuesday, the 4th instant, at a distance of 1,200 miles. meanwhile it would be sought to establish a chain of communications on our behalf through the united states vessel yankton, then lying at tonga, and the panther, at the coaling station pago pago, in the samoan group. in this success was achieved, with the result that we have been able to place the information so obtained at the disposal of your readers on five days in succession. as the glacier left suva today the aerial "chain" has been broken — for the time being, at least."