Technical Digests: Marine Radio Telephone Service for Boston Harbor

H E R E has been a constantly increasing interest in an inexpensive service for small harbor and coastal craft such as tugboats, private yachts, coastal passenger ships, merchant craft and fishing vessels. This interest became particularly evident in New England in 1931 and since equipment suitable for the purpose had recently been developed by Bell Telephone Laboratories, the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company undertook the establishment of a marine radio telephone service. A survey consisting of a comprehensive series of field strength measurements on shipboard and at various points along the coasts of Massachusetts and Cape Cod Bays resulted in selecting Green Harbor as the location for a shore station. Green Harbor is in the town of Marshfield, Massachusetts, about 28 miles southeast of Boston. A commercial survey indicated that initially the service would be of interest chiefly to the Boston fishing industry. Consequently, boat radio telephone equipment was installed on the trawler "Flow" of the Bay State Fishing Company and the service was opened in June, 1932, on a demonstration basis. As tests with this vessel progressed, it became evident that the radio telephone service would fulfill the communications requirements of the fishing industry. It also became apparent that a complete service of this type should include some means for determining the vessel's position at any time by means of radio. Therefore, the development of such equipment was initiated by Bell Telephone Laboratories as an adjunct to the radio telephone service, and the outcome of tests of an experimental model indicates that the problem of providing suitable radio compass equipment in the price range satisfactory to the fishing fleet owners has been satisfactorily solved.