Radio's Mission in the Antarctic

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 20, 30 November 1928, Page 2

Radio's Mission in the Antarctic

amet ELEN the small bark City m Gey Yee & of New York put out from New York City on August 26 bound for New Zealand, the first unit of the : ay Byrd Antarctic Hxpedition set forth for an absence of: certainly one and one-half, and possibly three years. The City of New York was christened Samson many years ago. She has been plying the sealing trade off the shores of Spitzbergen for over forty years. On her voyage south through the Canal to New Zealand thirty-seven of the seventy men who will take part in Commander Byrd’s Antarctic adventure were present. On September 15 the second unit of the expedition sailed from New York, when the trim ship Eleanor Bolling (nee Chelsea) set sail with additional men and additional equipment. Harly in October the 10,000 giant C. A. Larsen, a veteran Ross Sea whaling steamer, left Hampton Roads, Virginia, with four aeroplanes and additional food and equipment and at about the same time the fourth and last ship, the Sir James Clark Ross, another Ross Sea whaling steamer of some 10,000 tons, Jeft from the West Coast with the remainder of the supplies and men. The four ships will meet at the Ross ice barrier near the Bay of .Whales, where the City of New York and the Hleanor Bolling will tie up alongside the barrier to remain as the base camp. The supply ships ©. A. Larsen and J. C. Ross, will unload and depart. During the year following, there are some four million square miles of territory, upon which no person has yet set eye, to be explored by "land" parties and aeroplanes. This Antarctic expedition is,. probably the best-equipped expedition which ever set forth; certainly the best to go to the: South Pole regions. The Radio Equipment. HE radio equipment includes some * thirty-three transmitters and receiyers, with reserve supplies to keep them in operation for four or five years, if necessary. Call letters for the various major radio units of the expedition have been assigned by the Department of Commerece as follow :~~ KFK-General call for any or: all units of the expedition. WFAT-~The Eleanor Bolling. WFBT-The City of New York. WFA-The main base on the ice barrier (probably near Bay of Whales). WFB-The Ford tri-motored Ployd Bennett aeroplane. WFEC-The Fairchild Stars and Stripes aeroplane. ‘WED and WFH-Advance bases on land parties. WEF-The Fokker Virginia aero- : plane. An additional plane will use either call letters WFD or WEP. HB intermediate calling frequency for all units will be 500 ke. and the high frequencies used for calling will be 5600, 11,200 and 16,800 k.e. The intermediate working frequencies will be 375 and 425.5 k.c, and the high-

frequency communication frequencies will be 8290 kc, 4405 kc, 5650 ke, 6580 k.c., 8810 k.c., 11,800 ke, 18,187 k.e., 16,717 ka, and 21,805 k.c. It is expected that all high-frequency communications will be confined to the following frequencies, after the ice barrier has been reached: 3290 k.c., 4405 k.c., 6580 kc, and 8810 k.c. Both expedition ships carry 375 k.c. radio compass equipment. The compass receiver of one of the ships will be set up on the ice ten or fifteen miles

from the main base camp and will be used in conjunction with the compass receiver of the other ship to fix the position of all advance parties and planes by taking simultaneous bearings from the movable transmitters. The radio personnel includes Lieutenant M. P. Hanson, of the Naval Research Laboratory, who is chief radio engineer for the expedition; Ensign Lloyd Berkner, of the Bureau of Standards; Lloyd Grenlie, who accompanied the Byrd Arctic expedition; and Carl Petersen. High-Class Transmitters. ‘Rote expedition ships (WFAT and WFBT) carry two transmitters, one for intermediate and one for highfrequeney work. The ‘intermediate frequency set on the Eleanor Bolling is an R.@A, P-8 spark transmitter con-

verted to a 500-watt ICW set (type HT-3628). This transmitter will be used for short-range communication en route to the ice-pack and for radio compass work with advance base parties and aeroplanes. The high-frequency transmitter on this ship (shown in the illustration) was designed under the supervisionof Hanson and Mason and was built by the expedition’s radio personnel. It employs two 750-watt oscillator tubes in a special series-feed circuit

Plate supply of 500 cycles is obtained from a 6-kw, steam-driven generator. A 2-kw, auxiliary gasoline-driven unit is available for emergency work. The intermediate-frequency transmitter on the City of New York is a fog signal type 500-watt ICW set, which was obtained from the Bureau of Lighthouses. It is a General Blectric type RT-I-F transmitter with a tuning range of from:300 to 500 ke. The high-frequency transmitter employs the conventional tuned-grid. tuned plate circuit, using two UX-204-A 250watt tubes with 500-cycle plate supply. The latter set was constructed by the expedition personnel.. For intermediate-frequency reception (1000 to 800 ke.) standard navy type R.F, receivers using four stages of transformer-coupled radio-frequency amplification, an autodyne detector

and two stages of tuned audio-@@-quency amplification are provided for both ships and for the base camp. High-frequency: reception on the ships and at the base camp will be provided by the G.E.-R.C,A. high-frequency receiver using tuned r.f. amonlification with the UX-222 tubes. Radio on the ’Planes. ACH of the four planes is provided with 50-watt combined intermediate and high-frequency transmitters built by Heinz and Kaufman, Emerg: | ency battery-operated transmitters. for ‘planes and for advance parties were. provided by the Burgess Battery Conipany. The main ‘plane transmitters obtained plate and filament potentials from .small generators driven by the *‘plane’s motor of the constant current type. The tri-motored Ford. ’plane is equipped with a spure generator geared to a ‘second engine. The receiving .equipment for all ’planes uses the super-regénerative circuit. The receivers were constructed under the supervision of Hanson at the National Electric Supply Companiv, A main base canip-transmitter, similar to the installation on the Eleanor Bolling, and constructed by the shfp’s radio-men at the Staten Island shops of the Bureau of Lighthouses, will be set tip near the Ross. Sea, For recertion on all ‘planes a doublet from the tip of each wing extending to the tail, with feeder wires through the fuselage, will’ be used. Vor" transmission in the ’planes a trailing wire will be dropped from the tip of each. wing. | The expedition is carrying a great deal of laboratory equipmerit for making fading observations, oscillograms of echo signals, and much other scientific data, The fading recorder is a Westinghouse superheterodyne « ‘' +n was calibrated by the Bureau of Ntandards, and a Westinghouse oscillograph is to be used for: recording echo signals. While the main function of the radio equipment will.be the provision of reliable contact. with the world, it is expected that much scientifie’ radio. insormation will be collected and. collated. Weekly Broadcast from Home, QN October 6, about two, weeks atter the City of New York left Panuina Canal for Dunedin, the Westinghouse Electric Company’s radio station KDKA, at Pittsburgh, started a regular Saturday night broadcast for the members of the expedition. According to the "New York Times," Captain Melvilte, master of the City of New York, reported to KDIKA that the highfrequeucy broadcast transmission from that station was received satisfactorily by the ship, which was 2000: miles south-west, of Balboa. In a message to the "New York Times¥ Dr. Francis B. Coman reported by wireless from the City of New York :- "Probably very few ships have both morning and evening newspapers sucp as we have from the ‘New York Times’ and the ‘San: Francisco’ Examiner,’ And without. doubt no ship’s crew ever found it so easy to keep in almost constant touch with friends at home. Several of the men hayé ar-

ranged schedules with their wives and are able to have radio conversations with them in San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, and New York. Some of the unamrried among us view such facility of communication with. mixed feeling." 3 Srprescing gratitude for the arWngements made for a weekly broad-

cast from KDKA, Commander Byrd telegraphed to the Westinghouse Company before leaving San Pedro: "In initiating this weekly broadcast of messages from families and friends at home I am reminded of the -unsual success that the Westinghouse Company has met with in getting through

similar programmes to polar expeditions in the Arctic’ regions. This lends a feeling of confidence that we may look for results equally as good in, the Antarctic. . . It is almost urgeasonable to expect that we have no?/made a few mistakes, but in the

main I am sure that we have anticipated our almost every need, thanks to the loyal work of the entire personnel of the expedition. One of the principal reasons for the great care of preparation has been for the safety of my shipmates. That is the best way to show my deep appreciation of the sacrifices their families have made — a, rows ee 7

in making it possible for them to join our expedition." Thus, although the shore party of the expedition on the Ice Barrier will spend more than a year 2300 miles south of New Zealand, their radio equipment will enable them not only to keep the world informed of their

adventures but also to keep in touch with their families: and friends . in their homes in America 10,000 miles away.. That will do much to destroy the feeling of isolation and loneliness that has pervaded previous Antarctic ventures.