Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 189, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 August 1919 — TELLS LOST SHIP WHERE SHE IS [ARTICLE]

TELLS LOST SHIP WHERE SHE IS

System ts Triangulation Will Give Bearings to Bewildered Craft ALL U. S. PORTS TO WATCH Operators at Radio Stations Figure Out Position of Boat by Compasses—Used in Navy for Years. New York. —Not the least of the dangers attending the business of being a mariner has been that of losing one’s bearings while at sea. Time was when the sailor’s life was more replete with danger than In these days of advanced maritime efficiency. But though the ocean terrors were eliminated one by one until there remained little to be afraid of, there still was the disconcerting possibility of a ship losing Itself; of fogs and compass irregularities; of mishaps to instruments and disabilities of steering mechanisms. Thus every so often a Bner or freighter or a warship was reported “lost in the fog" or “out of Its course.” The United States naval communication service has perfected a system of triangulation that has eliminated the possibility of further maritime reports of this sort. It is not the discovery of any one man. Indeed, It truly cannot Lie classified as a discovery. It Is simply a perfection of a basic rule of position finding that has formed the fundamental of range determination In the army and a straightforward geometric theorem concerning intersecting lines. System Explained. The perfected system lias been in use In the American qavy for a year. At 44 Whitehall street the system was explained briefly by attaches of the New York district central controlling radio station. It Is to be assumed that a ship is « hundred miles off the middle Atlantic coast. She has lost her bearings. Her navigators are unable to tell her latitude and longitude. At once the bewildered ship’s radio flashes the American coast a demand to be told the data she needs most : “Where am I?" The request coming within the sector for which the New York district central controlling radio station is responsible, the appeal Is received by five radio compass stations located at Montauk Point, L. I.; Fire Island, Rockaway Beach, Sandy Hook and Mantoloking, N- JEach of these stations is connected ■with 44 Whitehall street by telegraph and telephone. These radio compass stations cannot communicate with the “lost" ship, as they are receivers only

ami not transmitters. However, each of the radio compass stations notifies the central station In Whiteall street *tliat a ship within the district is demanding to know its location. Immediately the central station radios the bewildered mnrlner to continue flasnlng his call letters for at least thirty seconds. And at the same time the radio compass stations begin obtaining bearings on the ship. Then Its Simple. The operators in the -five stations turn their compass wheels until each has an accurate bearing. These five readings are transmitted to the central station where, on a huge chart, the five readings are combined. Euch reading will indicate a certain number of miles between the ship and the station that took the bearing. It is a relatively simple matter, then, to project these lines upon the chart until the five lines Intersect. And that point of intersection is the location of the calling ship. Acknowledgment from the ship completes the operation. Every American port is now being safeguarded by just such systems of radio compasses and central stations. Within a few months, at any point along the coast, mariners will be able to approach channels, reefs and sluuil waters with an absolute assurance that they will not proceed too near, nor yet exercise such caution

as to throw them out of their course. And thus also is the danger attending fog banks eliminated. Lieutenant Commnnder R. B. Coffman. U. S. N., Is superintendent of the central station at 44 Whitehall street. Lieut. M. W. Arps, U. S. N., is in direct charge of the New York district.