Safety At Sea

Automatic Distress Transmitter For Small Ships

A NOTEWORTHY advance in the safety of life at sea was made when regula tions came into force on April 1 requiring all sea-going shipping in N.S.W., with a few minor exceptions, to carry wireless equipment. Similar regulations respecting Victoria and Queensland are already opera tive.

International regulations require all ships over 1600 tons or any vessel carrying more than 12 passengers to be fitted with wireless. Theoretically it was as easy to fit radio on a small schooner as on a large liner. A practical difficulty arose, however.

It was not easy to find accommodation on a small ship for wireless equipment and for an operator who would have no ordin ary messages to handle and might never have to transmit the S.O.S. signal.

Three years ago an invention was made within the Amalgamated Wireless organi sation which surmounted this difficulty— the automatic distress signal transmitter.

The device is quite simple, sending out, by means of a gramophone-like disc record, the S.O.S. together with the name of the ship, the position being given by an addi tional attachment which can be set within less than a minute. Prolonged experiments perfected the apparatus, and it was recog nised that this was the solution of the difficulty of equipping small vessels with wireless.

This new apparatus should be particu larly useful in the Pacific Islands where navigation at the best of times is a hazard ous undertaking.