AID TO SHIPPING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19107, 31 August 1936, Page 11

AID TO SHIPPING

RADIO-DIRECTION INTEREST IN GISBORNE Shipping men in Gisborne are keenly interested in the proposal to establish radio stations on the New Zealand coast for tlie assistance of ships approaching or navigating in New Zealand waters. Buck assistance is long overdue, it is considered, tlie need for radiodirection signals being particularly acute in such confined waters as Cook Strait and the Hauraki Gnli. Whether a station will be established on the East Coast as part of the initial scheme is doubtful, for although this most easterly portion of New Zealand is an important navigation mark for deepwater ships approaching the Dominion, it is contended that a station there would merely overlap the sphere of the Cuvier Island station, which is almost certain to be given precedence. It is significant, however, that occasions have arisen in the recent past on which the light-keeper at Portland Island has been asked to send out his signal, for the benefit of a ship navigating off the coast, the bearing being of assistance in plotting the position of the ship. Most, modern liners carry their own directional radio apparatus, it is pointed out, and for their purposes a system of automatic signals from known positions on the coast would be sufficient. For ships which are not fitted with directional apparatus, on the other hand, shore stations capable of ascertaining bearings from the ships’ signals would be required, the procedure being for two or more stations to report tlie bearings of the individual ship, and the position plotted ashore and then radioed to the masters.