How Wireless Has Lightened the Task of the Whaler

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 42, 4 May 1928, Page 16

How Wireless Has Lightened the Task of the Whaler

By

R. G.

Walker

in 66 Sydney Radio"

MIUST three years ago a ship sil set out for the Antarctic Ocean well provisioned, well fitted, and well man"el ogyed, and she was accompetite «=opanied by several smaller ships-ngly little things--each with a barrel on her mast, and a perky gun tn her bows. This was the whaling ship, Sir James Clark Ross, and the little ships were her assistants. ‘They went to an unknown job in more or less unknown waters, and they knew they would mect with many unforeseen experiences in the five or six months they would be away from the civilised world. ! Their forebodings were not without foundation. One of their greatest fears was the losing of tlie little fleet. ‘Ihe ships would be away for days hunting the elusive whales, and ever so often bringing their captures back to the mother ship to be flensed. The weather was often bad, and visibility poor, desMte the fact that the sun never set. They fought the snow and blinding sieet, and worst of all the merciless, pinching ice. ‘hey were stoical men, and heing Norwegians, they said little; but there is no doubt they felt a great deal. Many times they lost the bearings of the mother ship, having strayed further from her than usual when hard on the heels of some big fish. and many weary hours they scanned the frozen wastes anxiously searching for Nhe faint plume of smoke which would ‘ndicate the big ship and safety. ‘t one time a small whaler was lost for many days, and the big ship nade a cache of provisions and coal on the ice on the chance that the un- -_

/ fortunate whalemen would find it before they ran out of fuel and food, and exhaustion bade them give up the search. Day by day the season was} getting Jater, and it was more and more dangerous for the big ship to stay so; far south; every day the water lanes in the ice grew narrower, and the wind howled over the dismal wastes more drearily as the Antarctic winter drew on, pounding together the great bergs and floes, and making them shriek in their ceaseless conflict. ‘Tie mother ship waited as long as she could, but as the pack ice showed signs of closing the entrance to the Ross Sea (and a change of wind would mean imprisonment in the ice for the winter), the Sir James Clark Ross steamed slowly for the open sea, the little whaler and her crew given up as hopeless. It was by a stroke of luck they found her, steaming anxiously round a huge berg, navigating the ever-narrowing lane of water between the two limitless floes, and neycr was a crew more glad to be reunited. LL this has become aucieat history within the passing of taree years, but it served to show what wireless could mean to whalers. The Sir James Clark Ross was late: fitted with wireless, and is now able, practically the whole of the time she is in the Ross Sea, te communicate with New Zealand. She can get the news of the world, and hear music from several of the New Zea.and and Australian broadcasting stations. Indirectly, any member of her crew can send a message to his friends or his wife and family in Norway to let them know he is safe and well. But most important of all, she |

can maintain communication with her tiny fleet. LNSPIRED Fy the success which has attended the Sir James Clark Ross, two other fleets have been fitted out, Jed by the ships, C. A. Larsen and N, TI’. Nielsen Alonso. These, as well as the Sir James Clark Ross, has profited by experience, and have been fitted out with the most cellicient wircless apparatus that money can buy. The N. ‘I. Nielsen Alonso has a more powerful and more elaborate wircless installation than any merchant ship afloat, and all her small whalers are fitted with wireless sets capable of communication over a distance of-500 miles. ‘There 1s now not the sliehtest danger of the smaller ships getting lost, or for a moment getting out of touch of the rest: of the fleet, and the mother ship has not the slightest difficulty in communicating direct with wireless stations in Norway using her short-wave transmitter. i YHE, Nielsen Alonso is using Hobart as her base, and all the way from Larvik, her home port in Norway, she has been testing her wireless apparatus as well as small telephony transmitters intended for small whalers, which, by the way, are five in number, and are called Pol I, Pol II, ete., the word Pol being Norwegian for our word Pole. The telephone transmattcrs use a wave-length of 800 imetres, and so far have proved quite reliable over about 100 miles. They comprise two 4ull-emitter receiving valves, connected together in parallel, a common. telephone microphone, a couple of heavy duty dry cell high-tension batteries "eee ee Yo OY a A OT Cee eo

‘and a thick wire loose coupler very clumsily and obviously home-made, but wonderfully eflicient for all that. The pet piece of apparatus in the Nielsen Alonso's wireless ‘shack’? is the short-wave transmitter, or, rather, shortwave adaptor of the long-wave C.W. transmitter, ‘The plate voltage for the large 500 watt valves is obtained from a motor generator sel fed from the ship’s 110-volt direct current lighting supply. ‘It is changed from direct to alternating current by the motor generator, and ‘then stepped up to 5000 volts, and reetified by two leege valves. ‘There is all the other geai which is standard on most ships-spark transmitter and emergency apparatus. TPHERE are numerous receivers which are capable of covering all wayelengths from 20 to 25,000 metres, and enable the operators to pick up Press messages from the high-power stations of the world, or to listen to amateur experimenters communing with oie another. One of the most important pieces of apparatus on the ship is her wireless direction finding set. It is accurate within one degree out cf the 886 inte which the romplete circle of the compass card is divided. Down so far south all magnetic comnasses, such as are used on ordinary shins, are useless, and simuly run round in circles, because the ship operates almost on ton of the southern magnetic pole of the earth; but the wireless Girection finder never errs, and on it the ship depends entirely for l.er bearings. It is also used to locate the | smaller ships when they get out of sight of the mother ship. They, too, ,are fitted with the latest direction findeco

ing apparatus, and with it they can locate the mother ship’s posicwu i a couple of moments, With this apparatus, they are never afraid of getting lost, and many of the old terrors are temoved, They keep in « stant touch with the mother ship, and follow her wirelessed orders, "THE men who have the worst time on a whaling ship are the flensers.. They work anything up to fourteen hours a day, cutting up the whale blubber, and getting themselves covered with oil, filth, and offal from their prey. ‘The wireless operators have a bettcr time, but not so very much better, all things considered. On the ‘ittle ships, the skipper gencraily directs operations, trains and fires the whale gun, and operstes the miniature wireless set in a calin wlhuch looks too small to get into. In rough weather, he has an exciting time, wedging himself against the steel walls of the wireless "match box'’’-it is nothing more--and operating the set with one hand, while he stops it falling off the table with the other. Every uneasy jerk of he little ship makes him send dots instead of dashes and dashes instead of dats. After he has heen working for a while, the set gocs ‘dead,’? and he has to go outside and break the ice off the Jead-in insulator. Ice is one of the greatest troubles these operators cxperience. It clings to the aerial wires ‘and insulators, and makes the aerial leaky and useless, and weighs it down until it is necessary to let the aerial down, and break the ice from the wire. No, you will adimit it is not an easy joh, but whaling would he a much harder ‘rade if it were not for wireless.