AID TO NAVIGATION

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 290, 7 September 1928, Page 10

AID TO NAVIGATION

RADIO BEACONS Interesting references to the use of radio direction-finding beacons, for navigational purposes tire made in the annual report of the Marine Department presented to Parliament yesterday. The reason is given why no further action has been taken iu connection with the provision of a beacon at Wellington.

“The application of radio to navigation lias shown marked progress by extended use of the device now widely known as a radio-beacon,” the report states. “This device, installed at a salient point on shore, when used in conjunction with its component-—a radio direction-finder on board a ship —provides a ready means of obtaining a position-line. By making use of two of more radio-beacons, a ship having a radio direction-finder on board is enabled to ascertain her position within reasonable accuracy by the use of w.ellknown methods of navigation. This system would appear to have ousted the earlier systems, some of which were both expensive and complicated in their use. It has survived a lengthy experimental period, and has apparently come to stay. It is largely used in the older countries where ships are more numerous. The installation systems of radio-beacons in other countries has been closely watched, and so far it has been established the spark system of transmission is being discarded in favour of that of the interrupted continuous wave. “Very little use has been made during the past year of the radio directionfinding beacon at Cape Maria. This, of courst, is due to the fact that comparatively few ships are tilted with the complementary apparatus.. With regard to the provision which was made on the appropriations for the erection of similar beacons at Lyttelton and Wellington, the Department learned that the Canadian authorities were carrying out experiments with a continuous-wave type, something other than the spark-gap type having become desirable because of interference with other wireless telegraphic operations. The advice tendered by the Canadian authorities was to the effect that, while it was early to assert positive! v the success of the contintiouswave type, they considered it. inadvisable to' proceed in the meantime with the installation of any further beacons of the spark-gap type, and consequently no further action has been taken in the meantime.”