MARINE SCIENCE 105 
allocated and are used almost completely by the military, commercial, 
and amateur interests. There do not appear to be any suitable fre- 
quencies. for.extensive reliable communications available to the ocean- 
gemaphic- oriented research programs 
The Catan. I think you will find that they are available. 
Whether you get them or not is another story. 
Mr. Snoperass. That, sir, is true. 
Anticipating the general problems of the oceanographer, the Office 
of Naval Research sponsored a study contract on oceanographic tele- 
metry (Contract Nonr-3062(00)) with the Convair Division of the 
General Dynamics Corp. The first phase of the study has been com- 
pleted, and a very excellent report has been submitted to ONR. One 
of the purposes behind the study contract was to investigate various 
factors involved in telemetering data from. remote oceanographic 
instrument buoys to shore- based facilities. The factors which must 
be considered in this operation are tremendously involved and com- 
plicated. Some of the factors involve the behavior of specific radio 
frequencies in regard to radio propagation characteristics, such as 
ship distances, seasonal variations of noise with respect to latitude, 
solar-induced radio propagation anomalies, power requirements, fre- 
quency band widths, and so forth. All of these variables have not 
been organized and collected together in the report submitted to 
ONR by Convair. 
It appears that long-range communication may not be Nae eee 
reliable using whatever frequencies may be available between a shore- 
based | receiving station and remote buoy or ocean station. This is 
assuming that dependable communication is required and that data be 
transmitted without objectionable error. It is quite true that one 
may obtain occasionally, and even for a limited period, transmission 
which might be considered acceptable. The difficulty, however, is 
that such ‘conditions cannot be counted upon if reliable transmission 
is required. It is therefore necessary to seek modifications of the 
system whereby reliable communications may be established. 
The Cuatrrman. This may be a naive question. What do you find 
out from a buoy? 
Mr. Snoperass. This is something that oceanographers, I think, 
have some very good ideas about. ‘The buoys have an advantage of 
the anchored buoys staying on station. 
The CHairman. You get recordings from, the instrumentation 
aboard ? 
Mr. Snoperass. Yes, sit. 
The Cuarrman. I suppose the simplest thing would be wave action? 
Mr. Snoperass. This can be done also. 
The Cuarrman. Go ahead. 
Mr. Snopnerass. Perhaps the most available method at present to 
begin to solve the buoy communication problem, and evolve a method 
which could be put into effect with existing technical facilities is the 
use of high-flying aircraft to serve as an interrogation platform for 
communicating with floating buoys, and so forth. This would permit 
the use of relatively low-power radio transmitters in the buoys and a 
relatively simple information storage system. The high-flying plane 
would transmit a suitable coded interrogation pulse which would 
insure the response of the desired buoy. Since the airplane would be 
