RADIO CORPS

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 132, 1 December 1936, Page 10

RADIO CORPS

SUPPORT FROM A.A.

NATIONAL FIELD DAY

The Wellington section ox the Radio Emergency Corps, a body of amateurs which has been formed to keep open lines of communication in the event of a national emergency, is to receive ■the support and co-operation of the Wellington Automobile Association, and it is hoped that eventually all sections of the corps "ill work in with the automobile associations in their districts. Recently negotiations were entered into with the automobile association at Wellington, and' the authorities agreed to t test. Accordingly an association car made a round trip from Wellington to Ohau. Falmu-ston North, Shannon, Woodville. Greytown, Masterton, and back to Wellington, carrying an operator and radio equipment. Test messages were sent out from the car to bases, and were received perfectly, replies being received by the operator in the car. The automobile association considered the tests so satisfactory that the corps is quite likely to be called up for service in conjunction with the patrol cars should road and telegraph communications be interrupted owing to storm or earthquake. The Radio Emergency Corps has sections from Auckland to Invercargill, and four or live times every year it holds a national field day, when all sections go on the air and communicate with one another. Next Sunday is a field day of the corps, and the different sections will be handling practice messages. As far as possible conditions will be made to simulate those existing in a time of national emergency. The Wellington corps will use three stations, a portable outpost station, a transportable station, and a base station. The portable station, which is comparatively weak, sends its messages to the transportable station usually located in a motor-vehicle, and is relayed to the base station. If the message is intended for the portable station of some other section the Wellington base will then relay it to that section's base station, and it will then be relayed to the portable, or outpost station, by way of the transportable station. On Sunday the local base station will be at Karori, the outpost. at Trentham, and the transportablei station probably at Wainui. The corps has several times in tho past rendered invaluable service durv ing searches for lost trampers and in. other emergencies, and indeed this ii; one of the most important phases of its work under normal circumstanccji.