SAVED BY WIRELESS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20491, 17 February 1930, Page 5

SAVED BY WIRELESS.

A SHIP IN DISTRESS.

RECEPTION AT A FIRESIDE.

HOW S.O.S. WAS ANSWERED.

The story is tiiild by the Daily Telegraph of how assistance was brought to n ship in peril at sea owing to one of the most remarkable interventions of Providence.

A Russian vessel storm-tossed in the English Channel was sending out an 5.0.5., but the call was not .being heeded. It was intercepted by a wireless listener as he sa.t before the study fire in 'his Surrey home. Ily telephoning to the North Foreland raidio station the listener was instrumental in causing ship and crew to be saved. After a little while the reception of the S.O.S. the listener's wireless aerial was blown down, and hfl' climbed 50ft. to refix it. The modest hero of the story is Mr. Cyril E. Baron, a marketing consultant, who was listening-in at his home in Weybridge. " During one of the worst of the December storms," Mr. Baron said, as he told the story of his timely intervention, "the wind damaged my wireless aerial. 1 climbecl the 50ft fir tree ,to which it is attached to refix it. That night, following my usual, custom when I find the 8.8.C. programme uninteresting, I sat down to listen-in to the ships in the Channel. Before the war I was a wireless operator £it sea, and I am naturally especially interested in whips' messages. " I turned in to 600 metres, the ships' commercial wavelength, and within a few minutes, amid the buzz of Morse traffic, I was surprised to hear that call which no captain will refuse to answer —the S.O.S. ti ßut nobody was answering it. It was obvious to me that the ship was a Russian, and in unusual. English I caught words wh:ich I interpreted*: 'Please, everybody, come and help.' There was also a continual call for the North Foreland radio "station. As the traffic for ships in the Channel at the time was as heavy as I had ever known, it, I concluded that' the North Foreland station was being jammed.

Life or Death Call. " The fiituation wis dramatic. There was I, sit ting snugly in my armchair in Surrey, listening to a life or death call, and .'I had to decide what to do. I resolved to risk a telephone call to the radio station, with the possibility of an official reprimand for my, interfering temerity. '' ,

" I asked the local telephone operator to get me through at once to the North Foreland station, explaining that I was an ex-wireless. officer and had an urgent message. Within three minutes I was connected with the officer in charge/ told him who I was and- what I had heard.*

" By the time I had got back to my study," said Mr. Baron, "and had put on the lieadphpnes I discovered that North Foreland had secured quiet by sending out the Q.R.T. message to ships in the viicinity, which means 'suspend, working.' By intercepting messages from the station I then heard them talking to the ship, which was the'steamer Jakov Sverdlov, and telling- them that three tugs were on their way to their assistance. I also intercepted a message from one of the tugs 1o the "same effect.

" Later I leariiecl that the vessel was being\ towed to safety, and I had the pleasure of tlie Sverdiov's 'Sparks' asking iilutt tfaffic through the ether should be resumed. A-quarter of an hour Hater my aerial was blown down." '

Thanks Tram Post Office. As an interesting; sequel to the story a few days later IHr. Baron received from the General Post, Office not the reprimand he :feared, ! but the following letter:—" It.is reported to the Postmaster-7 General that on December & you informed, the North Foreland coast' station by tele- ~<i phone that wireless distress signals from ; the steamer Jakov |3verdlov were; not re-' ceiving attention. I am; therefore, to thank •» you for the 5 action which you took to bring ;< this matter to notici, and to express the >■ Postmaster-General's appreciation of your promptitude. , ' / * 1 " io pre\ious suspension of commercial signalling oil account of distress wording, intense interference was being experienced at North Foreland at the time when the distress signals from the Jakov Sverdlov were emitted, and. in order to make communication practicable it had been found necessary to utilise the directional receiver at the coast station. The effect of this procedure was temporarily to minimise the strength oE the signals from the direction of the Jakov Sverdlov."

The final paragraph, which gives practical expression to the departmental appreciation, reads: " X am to add that the charge for the telephone call to the North Foreland station will not, of course, be debited in your telephone account." Mr. Baron, whose expert'knowledge of wireless stood him in good stead, was on wireless work throughout the war. He was responsible for the erection of several wireless stations in the East, one of them at Akabu, in Egypt, Colonel Lawrence's headquarters, ,