CORPS OF SIGNALS

Camp News (Northern Command), Volume 1, Issue 16, 16 August 1940, Page 8

CORPS OF SIGNALS

Intensive Training Course

OFFICERS AND N.C.O.’S

From the four main centres of New i Zealand, officers ami N.C.O.’s of the New Zealand Corps of Signals are undergoing a 10-weeks intensive course at the Army ? School of Instruction. They are in civil life employees of the Post and Telegraph Department, and this is one branch of the Army service where the experience and knowledge a man has in his everyday workman be readily adapted to its military counterpart. Telegraphists, engineers, chauffeurs, mailroom workers, linesmen, operators and other branches of the service are ■represented in the corps. Their job in war is the maintenance of communica- ■ tions by wireless, link, key and speech telegraphy, and by visual aids such as flags, lamps and the heliograph. The lamp has an effective short range. With the naked eye messages by it earn be.received at up to two miles and by telescope three to four miles. At. night the- range is six miles and twice that, distance if the' receiver uses a telescope.

The heliograph is used a goo'd deal in Egypt because of the clear atmosphere and -constant sun. The range under the best atmospheric conditions is 70 miles, in Egypt even up to 85 miles. The heliograph is a mirror system of signalling by utilizing the rays of the sun to reflect the beam on a distant station.

The other forms* of communications such as wireless telephony and telegraph are well known, hut in the field the signallers must often operate and maintain communications under conditions of great difficulty and danger. . z The corps has its own transport and mobile wireless station vehicles, cablelaying wagons and dispatch riders. Eighty officers and N.C.O.’s are ticking the course, the latter consisting of the sergeants and half of the corporals. At the. end of the course half those who have completed it will go into tented camps with half the complete personnel of their district units.- The remainder will return to their work, thus ensuring that the department - will not be embarrassed at a busy period. After Christmas they, in turn, will go into camp to train the balance of the men of their units in Auckland. Wellington. Christchurch and Dunedin.