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Show 'DEPT. OF COMMERCE IMPROVING LOCAL FIELD AND STATION Crew at Work Re-Conditioning Landing Field Equipment Expected for Radio Beacon W. F. Kline, Department of Commerce Com-merce Airways enginoei, Mr. Gillett, chief technician, and pilot Jones, landed their plane at the local airport Thursday of last week on an insoec-tion insoec-tion tour of all emergency landing fields, and broadcasting stations. They spent several hours in Milford. Following their visit a crew of men from the U. S. Department of Commerce Com-merce lAirways Division from Salt Lake arrived and began work of reconditioning re-conditioning the local landing field. The work is in charge of J. D. Mitchell, Mit-chell, Pete Wordhoff and Fred Wen-drick. Wen-drick. All the brush will be removed from the landing field and the land leveled. This work will require two and probably three weeks work. Bids were received Monday by E. F. Key, operator in charge of the broadcasting station, for graveling a roadway aci'oss the departments ground west of Milford. The bids have been forwarded to headquarters in Salt Lake, and the contract will probably be let this week. The bids were all from local men. The addition of the radio beacon system is expected to be installed at the local broadcasting station in the near future as the equipment has been provided and is expected to arrive ar-rive shortly. The radio beacon plant will be housed in the present broadcasting broad-casting building although it will require re-quire additional antenna circuits and outside wiring. Contrary to the idea held by those unacquainted in electrical electri-cal science, a radio beacon is not an illuminated beacon. It is a directive radio beam signal which guides the pilots. Through their head-sets they listen to signals sent out by the stations sta-tions in form of dots and dashes. In one case a dot-dash means one side of the course, and dash-dot the other. By this means the pilots are enabled to steer their planes on a direct course between the stations. In this case the radio beam will be sent north from Milford until it joins the beam sent out from the Salt Lake station, and the same applies in the direction south from Milford to the next radio beacon station in that direction. The on-signal comes to the pilot as a steady hum. Upon the arrival of all the complete com-plete parts necessary for equipping the local broadcasting station with the radio beacon system, there will be considerable work for technical men, assembling the parts and getting gett-ing the plant into operation. After completion additional help will be maintained here for its operation. |