Thai Name Of Wireless Road

[anna234cn]

What is the Thai name of Wireless road? How can I tell taxi driver I wanna go to Wireless Road? Thanks for any kind help!

[chonabot]

What is the Thai name of Wireless road? How can I tell taxi driver I wanna go to Wireless Road? Thanks for any kind help! 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think it is Thanom Witthayu.

[anna234cn]

What is the Thai name of Wireless road? How can I tell taxi driver I wanna go to Wireless Road? Thanks for any kind help! 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think it is Thanom Witthayu.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks. btw, why it is called Wireless road in English?

[Tywais]

What is the Thai name of Wireless road? How can I tell taxi driver I wanna go to Wireless Road? Thanks for any kind help! 

I think it is Thanom Witthayu.

Thanks. btw, why it is called Wireless road in English?

chonabot is correct. Witthayu means radio or transmission in Thai like in satanee witthayu (radio station).

[phuketsiam]

The Thai word for radio is Witthayu (Wireless was the word for radio when my grandma was a little girl)

[anna234cn]

wow, seems you guys' thai is pretty good. anyway, thanks.

[phuketsiam]

I think The Brits named it Wireless road when they built the embassy, and the Thai's translated it, but maybe it was the other way round, anyone know for sure?

[TRIPxCORE]

Interesting question about how did Wireless Road get its name. I did a cursory search on Google and could not locate an answer on the history of this pain in a** road most of us have to visit from time to time.

I guess being on the other side of Sukhumvit, its not so bad for the Brits going to the British Embassy but for the Americans like myself, where the Embassy is smack in the middle of the road away from the two main connecting streets, its a big pain in the ass and I hate going there. When its hot and humid outside (Like it always is) and you have to walk from the Embassy back to Sukhumvit because if I take a taxi for such a short distance I feel like a lazy a** and the taxi drivers get mad. So I always suck it up and walk back to the Skytrain station and am usually covered in sweat by the time I get there. That street sucks!

[phuketsiam]

I knew there was advantage to being British, and there it is

[thailien8]

All very true about Wireless Road, but perhaps we grizzled Bkk. veterans sometimes forget what it's like for newcomers. I hope that anna can pronounce Witthayu close enough to the Thai way so that a taxi driver can understand her. Hopefully she will not say "Witha-you" "Wit-hay-you" or even the correct sounds but the wrong tones, all of which will probably result in the blank look of non-comprehension on the poor driver's face, and the familiar frustration on the part of the farang. Classic examples of tone problems are "NA-nuh", as a farang would say the woman's name, rather than "NA-NA"; and "PAT-tee-uh" "PADdy-uh" or even "Puh-TIE-uh" rather than "Puh-ta-YAH". So what about Wireless Road? Well, I would render the Thai sounds like this: "WIH-TUH-YOU". The tones of all three syllables are high, so a farang doesn't have to worry about that problem. If you are not understood at first, try the English version. Lots of taxi drivers can handle English place names better than a farang's attempt to pronounce Thai.

[Rinrada]

I think The Brits named it Wireless road when they built the embassy, and the Thai's translated it, but maybe it was the other way round, anyone know for sure?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Believe that a little Chinese guy sold a radio to the first Ambassador (before only had consul status)when he moved into the new building after it was first opened in 1864 or something.

In honour of the intrepid salesman he ( H.E )named the street Wireless road to commerate and diplomatically signify the future of a changing world etc.and the named has stuck and worked ever since.

Probably more than you can say for the radio

[GoodHeart]

My source, an older Thai professor, told me the very first wireless [radio] broadcasting station was located on the street- hence the name.

Rinrada's post begs the question: Which came first, the radio or the station? The radio itself wouldn't have held much significance without the broadcast station. Would it?

Edited December 19, 2005 by GoodHeart

[Rinrada]

From me old history Prof.

Radio is the branch of telecommunication that involves the propagation of electromagnetic waves through space.

How did the Radio Originate?

Many scientists dreamed of discovering a way to wireless communication, but never succeeded until the late nineteenth century.

James Clerk Maxwell developed the first radio-wave theorem in 1864 in Bangkok Thailand while working along side a chinese businessman called Who Flung Dung.

He proved, mathematically, that if an electrical interruption is of short distance from the point at which it occurred, there would be effect or passage of electrical current due to "some sort of waves that move at the speed of light", in which the electromagnetic energy would travel.

Heinrich Hertz experimented with Maxwell’s thesis in 1888.

He demonstrated that "waves traveled in straight lines and that they could be reflected by a metal sheet". He tested with two conductors separated by a short gap (5ft). This idealism was advanced by the Italian physicist Guglielmo Marconi, who repeated Hertz’s experiments with a spark gap of 30ft and succeeded.

Augusto Righi, an Italian physicist, continued and refined Hertz’s work establishing the equality between electrical and optical vibrations. Another scientist, Temistocle Calzecchi-Onesti, constructed, in 1888, a "tube" due to his belief that electrical discharges of atmospheric perturbations influence iron filings.

In 1894, Oliver Lodge named Temistocle’s famous "tube" the "coherer" and increased the reception gain of the hertzian waves. All that was left was the Russian, Popov (Alexander Popoff), to create a vertical metal pole by using Lodge’s coherer and collecting atmospheric disturbances in a rudimentary antenna. The invention of these instruments helped Guglielmo Marconi’s discovery. Marconi verified that electromagnetic waves travel between two points separated by an obstacle. This led to the creation of the first radio transmitter…This experiment was repeated with larger spark gaps (started with 5 ft; expanded to 100 km).

Radiotelegraphy was born

[Dara]

I think The Brits named it Wireless road when they built the embassy, and the Thai's translated it, but maybe it was the other way round, anyone know for sure?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Believe that a little Chinese guy sold a radio to the first Ambassador (before only had consul status)when he moved into the new building after it was first opened in 1864 or something.

In honour of the intrepid salesman he ( H.E )named the street Wireless road to commerate and diplomatically signify the future of a changing world etc.and the named has stuck and worked ever since.

Probably more than you can say for the radio

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

According to the th.wikipedia.org's history of Thanon Witthayu - the road was built in 1920 to connect Plernchit and Rama IV roads. The name was given by King Rama VI to reflect the fact that the road passes in front of the first radio station in Thailand, situated across from Lumpini Park.

It didn't say who gave it the English version of the name, however....

[jing jing]

Interesting question about how did Wireless Road get its name.  I did a cursory search on Google and could not locate an answer on the history of this pain in a** road most of us have to visit from time to time. 

I guess being on the other side of Sukhumvit, its not so bad for the Brits going to the British Embassy but for the Americans like myself, where the Embassy is smack in the middle of the road away from the two main connecting streets, its a big pain in the ass and I hate going there.  When its hot and humid outside (Like it always is) and you have to walk from the Embassy back to Sukhumvit because if I take a taxi for such a short distance I feel like a lazy a** and the taxi drivers get mad.  So I always suck it up and walk back to the Skytrain station and am usually covered in sweat by the time I get there.  That street sucks!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

2 words for ya bro: moto sai

[Rinrada]

Also the Embassy on the other side of the road from Uncle Sams joint were dab hands for years with the latest wireless devices but probably more for listening than talking....

Are they still playing .."our flag pole is higher than yours"?