OCR Text |
Show Shenandoah to Have Greatest Air Radio WASHINGTON The most powerful radio transmitting station ever taken aloft will be on board the navy dirigible diri-gible Shenandoah when she joins the Atlantic fleet to co-operate in war maneuvers ma-neuvers and later crosses the continent for similar work with the Pacific fleet. According to officers, the set will have a greater range than the wireless of any of the world's great passenger ships. The set is now being completed in the radio division of the navnl experimental experi-mental and research laboratory in Bellevue, near here. To make room for It the engine was removed from the control car of the Shenandoah daring dar-ing repairs made necessary by her runaway run-away flight, and an entirely new after-section after-section designed to replace the old motor cabin. An effective sending range of 1,000 miles was the minimum requirement set for the navy's radio engineers when they were told to build the new wireless plant. That was the least they were to do. What they have done, according to the giant 'airship's officers, is to turn out a set that under the most favorable transmitting conditions con-ditions will have an ether reach of between 4,000 and 5,000 miles. Compared with the 400 or 500 mile range of the dirigible's present set, these figures are impressive. Longdistance Long-distance sending will be taken care of by means of a tube transmitter, operating oper-ating on a wave-length range of 500 to 1,500 meters. For shorter ranges the new wireless equipment includes an auxiliary transmitter with a minimum mini-mum range of 500 miles. This transmitter trans-mitter operates on comparatively low power by resorting to high frequencies. frequen-cies. It works at 3,000 kilocycles on a 100-meter wave length. A six-kilowatt generator, driven by a special gasoline motor, supplies alternating al-ternating current for the main transmitter trans-mitter and direct current to replenish the plant's storage batteries and to light the ship. The batteries also furnish fur-nish "juice" for starting the generator motor. In case this breaks down in flight the batteries have sufficient reserve re-serve rower to operate the auxiliary transmitting set for some time in addition ad-dition to keeping necessary lights burning. Perhaps the most remarkable feature fea-ture of the Shenandoah's new equipment equip-ment Is her radio compass. So far as is known it is the first radio compass to be installed on a lighter-than-air ship and is said to be without counterpart coun-terpart In all the radio .world. It operates op-erates over a wider band of wave lengths than any similar instrument ever built. |