WIRELESS ON SHIPS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3112, 5 November 1913, Page 10

WIRELESS ON SHIPS.

NEW REGULATIONS TO BE GAZETTED NEXT WEEK. (From Our Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, October 16. Regulations providing that (Tins shall be equipped with wireless telegraphic apparatus will be gazetted within the next week. The regulations will empower the Governor from time to time, by Order in Council, to require that shins registered in New Zealand, and carrying passengers, shall be equipped with apparatus for transmitting messages by- wireless telegraphy. Power wilf be retained by the Minister of Marine to exempt any steamship from the operation of the regulations or to limit the time for which any such exemption shall be enforced. Every steamship registered in New Zealand, and 'carrying passengers engaged in the foreign or intercolonial trade, except steamships trading to the Auckland, Chatham, or Campbell Islands, and every Home trade steamship which is authorised by her ordinary survey certificate to carry not less than 150 passengers at sea, shall not leave, or attempt to leave, any Now Zealand port unless she is equipped with an efficient apparatus for radio communication in good working order. The range of the apparatus must bo not less than a distance of 100 miles day or night. Ships required to carry the apparatus shall be placed in the third class as defined by article 13 of the service regulations of the International Radio Telegraphic Convention, 1912—that is to say, they will not be bound to perform regularly any lasting service. The Minister of Marine may appoint inspectors for the purposes of the regulations.

and certain powers are given to these inspectors and to the superintendents of mercantile marine. Provision is made for preventing a steamship leaving port if she is not efficiently equipped in accordance with the regulations. The power necessary to transmit signals shall at all times, while the vessel is under way, be eligible for the wireless operators. Any master or owner of the ship committing a breach of the regulations is liable to a fine not exceeding £SO. The regulations will come into force on July 1, 1914.