Submarine Or Yacht Could Use Omega

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31725, 8 July 1968, Page 1

Submarine Or Yacht Could Use Omega

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, July 7.

The Omega navigation system could be used by submarines or yachtsmen, a student-organised teach-in on the subject was told today.

More than 300 students and members of the public attended the teach-in at Victoria University of Wellington.

A D.S.I.R. researcher into very low frequency radio waves, Mr F. A. McNeill, said he had calculated that the amount of power needed to run an Omega station providing a navigation service for surface vessels was one kilowatt.

The Omega station would run on 10 kilowatts, he said. “1 imagine the extra power is needed to push the radio signal through water, presumably to a submerged submarine.”

Mr McNeill emphasised that the Omega system was not specifically military in character.

“It is a very complex system which can be received by sets of varying degrees of sophistication,” he said. A single-handed sailor, or a merchant ship using one of the simpler receivers, would find it quite useful, he said. A lecturer in physics at Otago University, Mr R. J. Offen, said very low fre-

quency radio waves could carry useful information up to 50 feet beneath the ocean’s surface. “Small Margin” Discussing the accuracy of the Omega system, Mr Offen said trained men using the most sophisticated equipment could expect an error of not more than 200 yards, and a good 50 per cent of the time there would be no error at all. This had not been stated in recent press reports, he said. Mr McNeill said some recent reports had suggested

that submarines navigated using a combination of two systems, neither of them Omega.

He said submarines did use an inertial guidance system which they had to check and correct by referring to military navigation satellites, but Omega could supplement * Mr McNeill-said'New Zealand was uniquely situated for observing the action of very low frequency radio waves and the installation of an Omega transmitter would ruin such a situation.