Harbor Craft Ship-to-Shore Radio Telephone Service in 

 Puget Sound Area * 



By E. B. HANSEN 



PUGET SOUND with an area of about 6,000 square miles serves a 

 large region whose principal resources are lumber and fishing. 

 Movement of the raw products to points where the manufacturing and 

 processing are carried on comprises a major part of the short-haul 

 shipping in the Puget Sound area. Large lumber and pulp mills have 

 been permanently established at locations where deep sea shipping and 

 rail facilities are readily available. Logs in the form of large booms are 

 towed to the mills from the sources of supply which extend throughout 

 the area drained by the Puget Sound. The average haul of each boom 

 is about 75 miles and consumes several days. Because of the relatively 

 long time a tug is isolated in each operation, some economical means 

 of dispatching and directing the activities of the tow boats from the 

 land headquarters is desirable. In the case of fishing, there is an even 

 greater need than in the case of log towing for close contact between 

 fishing boat and cannery in order that both the fishing and cannery 

 activities may be coordinated so as to prevent waste of fish during 



large runs. 



From the above, it is clear that some means of communication be- 

 tween harbor craft and land stations would be useful. A preliminary 

 view of the problem indicated that low-powered radio telephone chan- 

 nels from each of these boats to a single land station and thence by 

 wire lines to any telephone, would be the most economical and practical 

 means from the standpoint of the ship owners. Furthermore, the 

 government regulations covering the issuance of operators' licenses for 

 radio telephone transmitters of 50 watts or less power are such that the 

 average member of a ship's crew can qualify after a few hours' instruc- 

 tion, thus making it unnecessary for vessels employing this equipment 

 to carry a special radio operator. 



After it was decided that this service was feasible and should be 

 established the initial order of procedure was the selection of the site 

 for the land station. 



Due to the fact that it is desirable to locate the transmitter and re- 

 ceiver in juxtaposition, a wide variety of factors had to receive con- 



* Digest of a paper published in Electrical Engineering, August, 1935, pp. 828-831 . 



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