WIRELESS IS BIG AID TO EXPLORERS IN THE ANTARCTIC.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18641, 19 December 1928, Page 3

WIRELESS IS BIG AID TO EXPLORERS IN THE ANTARCTIC.

BYRD EXPEDITION HAS BEST EQUIPMENT. (Special to the “ Star.”) WELLINGTON, December IS. Although the Byrd expedition is not the pioneer of radio in the Antarctic it is the first scientific and exploring venture to the Far South equipped to maintain continuous communication with the outside world. Sir Douglas Mawson’s expedition of 1911-14 established radio stations at Macquarie Island and at the main base at Commonwealth Bay, in Adelie Land, but the latter was not powerful enough to communicate with Australia or New Zealand. Wireless has made great strides since 1911-14, and the Byrd expedition has the very latest and best radio equipment, both short wave and long wave, procurable. Much of the apparatus for the ships, the base station at the Bay of Whales, and the aeroplanes, was specially designed to meet the unusual requirements of the expedition. The supply ships, City, of New York and Eleanor Bolling, have been in direct wireless communication with New York ever since they left that port. All the way across the Pacific from Panama to New Zealand, the ships, though hundreds of miles apart, were in touch with each other. Every Saturday since they left New York the Westinghouse Company’s radio station at Pittsburg has sent out a weekly broadcast to the ships, and this will be maintained with the ships and the main base at the Bay of Whales until the end of March, 1930, when the expedition is expected to return. Arrangements have also been made for the members of the expedition to exchange weekly messages with their families and friends in various parts of the United States. The Pittsburg broadcast has been picked up by many listeners in the Dominion. Since the City of New York and the Eleanor Bolling left Dunedin at the beginning of this month they have been sending and receiving radio messages to and from New York. Their radio equipment has also been of immense value in connection with the business of the expedition in New Zealand.

Many problems that have cropped up since the ships sailed have been speedily and satisfactorily settled by means of radio. Air G. Brophy, second in command, and business manager of the expedition, has been in almost daily touch with Radio Dunedin and Welling£bn, with Commander Byrd in the City of New York, and Captain Brown, master of the Eleanor Bolling. He has known all along exactly how the ships were progressing 1 , and since they parted company, just when the Eleanor Bolling will reach Dunedin. In bygone days, once an expedition had sailed for the Antarctic, it was completely out of touch with the world, and any omissions in its equipment could not be remedied. In the case of the Byrd expedition. Commander B\rd has been able to radio instructions regarding many details in connection with which experience on the southward passage has suggested improvements and the loading of the supply steamer. Last week Commander Byrd sent a radio message to Mr Brophy that there appeared to be a shortage in certain equipment, but the latter was able to forward an immediate reply stating exactly where it was stowed in the ship, and the following day he received a message stating that the goods had been found. To-day’s interesting dispatch from Mr Russell Owen, staff correspondent of the “ New York Times ” with the expedition is an outstanding example of the value of radio. His account of the adventures of the City of New York in the pack ice, 1600 or 1700 miles from New Zealand, was sent direct from the little ship by radio to the office of the

“ New York Times,” whence it was telegraphed to Vancouver and thence cabled to New Zealand. Allowing for the difference in time, it appears in the Dominion newspapers twenty-four hours after publication in New York.