WIRELESS WIZARDRY.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17472, 5 June 1922, Page 7

WIRELESS WIZARDRY.

HOW IT HELPS THE MARINES. Wizards of wireless constantly perform new wonders. Feats which would have consigned them to the gibbet or the • stake a few generations ago are now of daily occurrence. In few spheres does the inarch of inventive science appear more striking and marvellous. Even fairy tales are flashed over hundreds of inilt>s and entertain children in great numbers before bedtime, while j concerts by wireless are well known and frequent. Afloat or aloft, racing through fog or cloud, tho traveller, besides being in constant touch with the great world, need never bo uncertain of ins exact location. Since the war ingenious apparatus, designed to rogist-r the direction of wireless emanation, have proved an immense boon to master j mariners groping through tho toggj seas of the North Atlantic and Jiaiiunean waters. Infinite delays and inconvenience have been obviated; tho master of a vessel, assured that he is bearing so many degrees from a known station, proceeds with confidence to his destination. When heavy, fogs impede navigation on the Australian coast the mariner, unless satisfied from sounding or equipped with special apparatus, deems it prudent t 0 stop and await visibilitv. Yet direction-finding stations have* been operating for some time with successful results in Canada, Britain, and the United States. ~ , f how _ Two schools of wireless thought, how ever, have struggled for mastery in direction-finding efficiency. One declares that these fixed shore stations which supply bearings of an ship's message permit lines to be pi ted on a chart, and tho point of midsection represents the vessel s position. Frequently a single bearing is sufficient. The other school declares that vessels with special direction-finding apparatus on board may obtain their bearings much more readily and j out interruption of normal wireless tiaffic. Instruments fitted with a pointer, working over a, compass dial register the exact direction of signals from a.station, tho location of which is known. Such information is often enough to a perplexed ship master; it can, however, De supplemented by registration from another station, if available, and the position deteimined without delay. Latest direction-finders have a range of 300 mUes; an expert operator recently experimenting on Princess Pier, Port Melbourne, obtained nieht bearings from Pennant Hills (N.S.W.) and intermediate stations. .Direction-find-ers, carried by ships themselves, have been installed on many merchant vessels, and are being used on ships or the British Navy. The apparatus neceeitates a small addition to the ordinary aerials. Among oversea liners coming to Australia equipped with direction-finders aire several P. aiid 0. steamers. The new steamer Sophocles, of the Aberdeen line, also carries the apparatus. A relative infrequency in Australia of heavy, continuous fogs, such as mantle European and American coasts, has, perhaps, accounted for a certain backwardness in establishing these stations or ship installations in Australia and New Zealand. Their utility and value, however, have been abunaantly demonstrated. Small fleets frequently hang about outside ports awaiting visibility, when accurate information would enable them to proceed. Valuable time would also be saved in the case of a vessel sending out the S.O.S. signal, when the precise direction of her message were established. Australia cannot afford to lag behind other oountries in adoption of appliances calculated to facilitate air-borne and seaborne traffic, and to ensure maximum safety of human life and property.