The lexicographers define “communications” as intercourse by words, letters, or messages; the interchange of thoughts or opinions, by conference or other means; news and intelligence. In any organization, and especially in a military one, there must be a unity of purpose and a coordination of effort if the common objective is to be attained. To accomplish a given task it is necessary, first, to know what is to be done; second, how it is to be done; and third, to be able to give the information and directions necessary to its doing. Without efficient communication, successful accomplishment of the last named is impossible. The success of any enterprise depends upon the communications within the organization conducting the enterprise. Concerted action and understanding is not possible if the directing head of the enterprise is without reliable contact with the units of the organization.
Wells, in his Outline of History, in referring to the value of communication to the world, says:
The need for a common knowledge of the general facts of human history throughout the world has become very evident during the tragic happenings of the last few years. Swifter means of communication have brought all men closer to one another for good or for evil.
The ability to communicate quickly and efficiently with one another is a prime requisite of a united people, essentially so in the advanced stages of civilization and progress. Lacking this ability, the development of a common ideal is impossible. Confusion and misunderstanding take the place of orderly progress, and national unity is impeded. It will be recalled that General Smuts declared at the first meeting of the Economic Conference of the British Empire in 1923 that:
Communications are the essence of our Empire and unless we succeed in solving some of the most urgent problems of more rapid and cheaper communications, it will be impossible in the future to hold together this vast Empire, scattered over the whole globe. [Communications, by W. Tetley Stephenson, chap. 1, par. 1. (Resources of the Empire Series)]
Rear Admiral T. T. Craven, United States Navy, a recent director of naval communications, in his articles on “Communications” in the Naval Institute Proceedings, October, 1928, stresses quite forcibly the importance of communications to trade and commerce. He points out:
Business everywhere is accepted unquestionably as the world’s greatest benefactor; and despite the care required to guard the interests of the public against unscrupulousness and cupidity, commerce has proved itself the best vehicle for international understandings…
The stupendous figure of $17,000,000,000 is the present and constantly rising value of the yearly imports of the leading countries of the world. Speed and directness of communications are the essentials upon which this big business everywhere depends.
Before the advent of radio we can all picture what it must have meant to put to sea without means of calling for help in case of a marine disaster. Today radio is taken for granted as the means of communication in a case of that kind. However, in 1909 fate provided the dramatic moment when the attention of the entire world would be fastened on the then struggling art. The steamship Republic of the White Star Line met in collision the Italian ship Florida off Nantucket. From the darkness of the ocean at midnight flashed the first radio call of distress, the famous CQD message that thrilled the world. As the result 1,500 human beings were saved from a sinking ship. It was this event more than any other that established radio communication permanently on the seas.
In military life, as in all other lines of human endeavor, communications has played a major role. It has been a decisive factor in the growth and development of the military organization. The size of the modern infantry company was based originally on the number of men who could be controlled by the voice of one leader. Today, by means of the radiotelephone, the voice of one man may be broadcasted to an entire nation.
History plainly points to the exceedingly important part communication has played throughout the ages. Victories have been won and battles have been lost by reason of the proper or improper functioning of communications. Andrew Jackson fought and won the battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815, two weeks after the Treaty of Ghent had been signed, because he did not know at the time of the battle that a treaty had been made. If ocean cable or radio had been in use, the loss of life at New Orleans might have been avoided. On the other hand, news of the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth, September 5, 1905, concluding the Japanese-Russian War, was flashed to the uttermost parts of the civilized world in less than forty minutes.
In the Naval Institute Proceedings of October, 1926, Captain (now Rear Admiral) Ridley McLean, U. S. Navy, then director of naval communications, states:
It must, therefore, be clearly recognized in the very beginning that “Communications" is a war requirement. The Naval Communication System is designed for its war-time use exactly as are vessels of the Navy themselves; every change made in the system is weighed in that balance and all methods and all training are based on their value for war.
This principle is likewise directly applicable to the Coast Guard in that the Coast Guard is by law constituted a part of the military forces of the United States. However, the word “war” has a larger significance to the Coast Guard. Rear Admiral F. C. Billard, Commandant of the Coast Guard, has often referred to the Coast Guard by the most appropriate phrase, “The Peace-and-War Service.” He also aptly states:
When the country is at peace, the Coast Guard must continue to wage a war of its own for the protection of ships and sailormen against the ever-present menace of the dangers of the sea—an enemy that never sleeps or signs treaties.
Its peace-time duties, the majority of which are essentially humanitarian in their character, are of great importance. However, the conditions under which the peacetime activities of the Coast Guard are conducted involve the use of a communication system capable of meeting those conditions which, in general, are peculiar only to the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard communication organization is therefore based on normal peace-time requirements, with special provision for modifications to meet Navy requirements in time of war.
The successful operation of the Coast Guard rests upon a foundation of efficient communications. It is charged by law with the performance of certain duties which cannot successfully be performed unless its personnel, units, and boats have that intimate contact with one another which makes for unity and intelligent cooperation. Briefly, the duties of the Coast Guard may be summarized under three general headings, namely: the rendering of assistance to vessels in distress and the saving of life and property at sea and along our coasts; various miscellaneous duties including the enforcement of certain customs and navigation laws; and the operation as a part of the Navy in time of war or when the President shall so direct. The Coast Guard’s communication service is necessarily based upon the requirements of these duties, and it follows that an orderly, comprehensive communication system is absolutely essential to the successful accomplishment of these ends.
Having certain definite duties to perform, the main mission of the Coast Guard Communication Service is to so coordinate, develop, and arrange the communication facilities at its disposal that the duties assigned to the Coast Guard may be performed in the most expeditious and efficient manner. The facilities available are the same as those available in the Naval Communication Service and are well known by those acquainted with that service. The Coast Guard employs the telegraph, telephone, cables, radio in its various applications, underwater sound signaling, visual signals, codes and ciphers, and cryptanalysis. These are but the means by which communication is carried on. The service of communications is comprehensive, embracing the transmission of orders or information by whatever means is most available and most suitable to the occasion.
It has not been found necessary in the Coast Guard to organize a complete and self-contained communication system such as is maintained in the Navy. In the spirit of coordination, and to eliminate unnecessary duplication, full use is made of the existing communication facilities of the Navy as well as other government departments and of commercial companies, the Coast Guard maintaining such communication units, stations, and organizations as are necessary to augment these other facilities to meet requirements peculiar to the Coast Guard or to provide for service which the other agencies are not in a position to furnish. The combination of all these facilities supplies the Coast Guard with a communication system suitable to its needs.
The organization of the Coast Guard Communication Service, its method of doing business, and all of its activities, are modeled after the Naval Communication Service. This includes the dispatching, transmitting, coding, decoding, recording, distributing, and filing of all dispatches and signals which may be received or transmitted by whatever method; also the responsibility for procuring, recording, distributing, collecting, and accounting for secret and confidential publications. Not only are the everyday needs of the Coast Guard thus admirably met, but the Coast Guard Communication Service thereby makes provision for the efficient mergence with the Navy organization in time of war or when the President shall so direct, which, as stated previously, is one of the principal duties of the Coast Guard.
The adoption of the “Navy Communication Instructions” insofar as they are applicable, making only those omissions and slight modifications to suit the particular needs and organization of the Coast Guard, is therefore a logical provision. This has been done and the service now has a publication, “Communication Instructions, U. S. Coast Guard,” similar part for part, chapter for chapter, and paragraph for paragraph, to the corresponding Navy publication. While changes and omissions have _ been made in the text in order to have a distinctly Coast Guard publication, the subject matter of each of the parts, chapters and paragraphs are identical.
One illustration will impress the reader with what is accomplished. In the handling of traffic in any communication system it is necessary to adopt a standard procedure to assist in creating a universal understanding; in other words, a knowledge by each operator of what every other operator is trying to do, and of essential communication information and instructions with the minimum of transmission. The various phases of communications must be conducted in exact accordance with the prescribed form, otherwise confusion, error, delays, and unnecessary transmission are certain to follow. Navy operating procedure adopted by the Coast Guard, in addition to serving a useful purpose in the Coast Guard, permits the interchange of communication traffic between the Coast Guard and Navy communication organizations expeditiously in a language understood by both, as well as permitting the training of operators for employment in the Navy system when mergence with the Navy takes place.
During the past year a communication competition was inaugurated, patterned, with slight modification, after that conducted in the Navy. The competition at present is confined entirely to the Coast Guard organization, but it is contemplated that at some future time the Coast Guard will enter the Navy competition so that traffic handled between the two services will be counted by both in their competitions. As in the Navy, this competition is not an artificial one, but is a competition based upon an analysis of everyday traffic-handling and is a true indication of the efficiency of a traffic station or unit. In addition to stimulating interest and relieving the dull monotony of daily routine, it provides an incentive to conduct the communication service in the prescribed manner and so that each communication officer will know what traffic delays are occurring on each circuit and will know what each unit handling traffic is accomplishing.
Visual communications play an important part in the Coast Guard Communication Service, even though there is a natural tendency to depend more and more upon radio. Communication by visual means, when it replaces the radio, relieves congestion on the radio circuits and makes possible the full utilization of such circuits for emergency traffic and for the handling of traffic over greater distances. The Coast Guard uses flag hoists, flashing light, semaphore, and wigwag, conforming in every detail to the instructions and procedure governing the Navy organization. Coast Guard units are supplied with the “Navy Auxiliary Signal Book,” “Navy Signal Manual,” “Navy Boat Book,” the “Visual Calls Memoranda,” and certain other allied publications. The “Visual Calls Memoranda” list Coast Guard units and have assigned to each a visual call with the initial letter “W” followed by a number, in accordance with the Navy practise. This “W” block of calls is assigned exclusively to Coast Guard units.
All units, both afloat and ashore, are prepared to receive and send messages in the International Code of Signals. This is quite important because of the relationship between the Coast Guard and the merchant marine. Every Coast Guard station (lifesaving station) along our coasts can receive and transmit from and to any vessel passing by the station, or maintain communication with any vessel, whatever be its nationality.
The use of codes and ciphers in the Coast Guard is necessarily of considerable importance. Due to the nature of its activities, there is constant danger of compromising a code or cipher, and for this reason the Coast Guard in its law-enforcement work makes use of no codes or ciphers of a strictly military nature compiled and issued by any other military organization. Certain of these military codes and ciphers are, however, issued to the Coast Guard for the purpose of instruction and as a matter of war-time preparedness. A code or cipher to be useful and efficient must be prepared around the particular business or activity in which it is to be used. The Coast Guard has therefore prepared and issued certain codes and ciphers designed primarily for exclusive Coast Guard use. In time of war these codes would be replaced by the proper military code of the Navy.
Functioning in the Division of Operations there is at the headquarters of the Coast Guard in Washington a communication officer who, by direction of the Commandant of the Coast Guard, is charged with the administration of the operation and upkeep of the Coast Guard Communication System. In addition to operating a communication service, as distinct from the upkeep and supply, this branch of Coast Guard activity includes communication material, its design, engineering, installation, and procurement. This arrangement is somewhat analogous to that in the Signal Corps of the Army and can also be compared to the situation which would exist if the subject matter of communication material, now under the cognizance of the Bureau of Engineering, Navy Department, was placed under the supervision of the director of naval communications. Therefore, the communication officer supervises and coordinates the three divisions into which the work of his office naturally falls, viz, Operations, Engineering and Plant, and Supplies and Accounts.
Communication Operations has to do with organization, recommendations relative to communication personnel, and handling of traffic, including communication procedure, operating signals, violations, discrepancies, traffic accounts, schedules, delays, and radio frequencies. This section of the office distributes and accounts for secret and confidential publications issued to units of the Coast Guard, whether or not they are prepared by the Coast Guard or other government department; and handles the subject of codes and signals, under which is included the preparation and adoption of all codes, ciphers, signals, signal books, assignment of visual and radio call signs and the design of flags, together with the instructions for their use. A communication office is maintained at headquarters in Washington for the receipt and dispatch of all messages at that place, which office is linked up with proper facilities, to the Navy Communication Office in the Navy Department, and Army Message Center and the offices of local commercial communication companies.
The subject of Engineering and Plant is of great importance to any organization employing equipment. A communication service cannot be successfully operated without the proper apparatus and tools to do the work. Here are handled all matters having to do with the maintenance, research, design, and inspection of radio, land lines, and sound apparatus. This includes the construction of telephone and telegraph lines, installation of communication apparatus on board ships and at shore stations, the research and design of new equipment to satisfy the special needs of the Coast Guard, together with the formulation of specifications and instructions for the use of that equipment. In this connection it is pertinent to observe that the Coast Guard maintains no separate laboratories or experimental stations in the work connected with the design and development of communication apparatus. However, with the excellent cooperation of other government laboratories and allied facilities and with the generous help of commercial organizations, such development and design work as is necessary is carried forward by the Coast Guard communication organization. Also in this way the Coast Guard is able to obtain first-hand information on what all agencies are doing, and pick, choose, or redesign equipment which is considered best adapted to Coast Guard work.
The third and last division of the communication administrative unit at headquarters procures and accounts for all communication apparatus and supplies in conjunction with the general supply system of the Coast Guard. This includes the keeping of records on appropriations and expenditures, preparation of contracts, the issuing of purchase orders, payments, records of stock, requisitions, boards of survey, and all other miscellaneous items having to do with supplies and accounts in communications. This keeps the communication officer in intimate contact with the finances and supplies so that he is always in a position to properly carry out his program for the maintenance and operation of the communication system.
Seven divisions similar to naval districts constitute, for the purpose of operation and administration, the Coast Guard field organization, the division commander directing the movements and being responsible for service activities assigned to his division. All communication facilities and problems within a division are under the supervision of the division commander, with a communication officer as his assistant. The extent of the communication organization and facilities in each division depends entirely upon the number of units and extent of the operations conducted within that division. Each organized force, operating base, and vessel has its communication organization, all coordinated and conducted under a system very much like that in the Navy.
A total of 314 Coast Guard vessels, including 25 destroyers, 38 cruising cutters, 244 patrol boats of the 100-foot, and 125-foot class, and 7 miscellaneous, are equipped with suitable modern, efficient radio apparatus to provide the necessary channels of communication and furnish reliable and quick contact with other units and forces. At various localities along the coasts the Coast Guard has established low- power, high-frequency shore radio stations to handle radio communication with its vessels. These stations were established primarily to provide radiotelephone communication to and from the large number of patrol boats operating from section bases located at strategic places along the coast. Their work has now been extended to handling radiotelegraph traffic where such use is practicable and necessary. Over 3,000 miles of coastal telephone, telegraph, and cable lines have been built along the coasts, linking up and furnishing telephone service to Coast Guard stations (life-saving stations), outlying and important lighthouses, various other Coast Guard and Weather Bureau units, and other government agencies. A division commander has at his disposal all of these facilities in addition to the commercial systems and Naval Communication Service.
The present total warrant officer and enlisted strength of the Coast Guard is approximately 11,600, of which, 44 warrant officers and 430 enlisted men of the various radio and electrical ratings are allocated to communication duty. The various ranks and ratings and the standards of qualifications for each correspond in general to those in the Navy. The War and Navy Departments have both cooperated in measures taken by the Coast Guard to stimulate interest and improve the professional qualifications of these men.
Radio electricians and radiomen are assigned to pursue courses of instruction in radio material and engineering in the appropriate radio schools at the Naval Research Laboratory, Bellevue, D.C.; full use is made of the Navy educational courses for enlisted men; and radiomen are permitted to pursue correspondence courses in the Marine Corps Institute. Enlisted men in the landline force are given courses of instruction in telephone construction and maintenance work at the Signal Corps School, Fort Monmouth, N.J. To provide for the training of recruits in radio a Coast Guard radio school is maintained at the Coast Guard Receiving Unit, New London, Conn. It is from this latter source that vacancies in radio ratings are usually filled.
The Coast Guard Coastal Communication System, commonly referred to as the landline or telephone-line system, constituting one of the facilities of the Coast Guard Communication Service, fulfills a most important and useful mission in government coastwise activities, especially in connection with the saving of life and property along the coast. This system had its origin in the early days of the Life-Saving Service, which in 1915 merged with the Revenue Cutter Service to form the Coast Guard.
By the Act of March 3, 1873, there was established and operated by the Signal Corps of the Army a storm-signal service for the benefit of seafaring men located at several life-saving stations on the Atlantic Coast. That corps constructed telegraph lines as the original means of communication to these signal stations. In 1878, in the spirit of cooperation with the life-saving service, the Signal Corps placed telephones on their telegraph line between Cape Henry and Kitty Hawk for the purpose of quickly concentrating the crews and appliances of the twelve life-saving stations in that area for concerted action on occasions of marine disaster. This appears to have been the original adoption of the use of telephones for life-saving work and it is believed that the United States Life-Saving Service (now the Coast Guard) was the first life-saving institution in the world to introduce the telephone as a life-saving medium.
The usefulness of the telephone to lifesaving work was so completely demonstrated that the Signal Corps between 1879 and 1889 extended their facilities, including among their major projects the connecting up of nineteen life-saving stations on the New Jersey coast, all such stations between Cape Henlopen and Cape Charles, and fourteen along the North Carolina coast, as well as several on the Great Lakes. In 1890 the Weather Bureau was founded by law under the Department of Agriculture and took over from the Signal Corps its weather and storm-warning work, together with the telegraph feature of the “Seacoast Telegraph and Telephone Lines,” as this Signal Corps activity was then called. The Life-Saving Service absorbed the telephone lines. Between 1890 and 1915, under the Life-Saving Service, the extension of the telephone system as a medium of communication progressed step by step as the exigencies of the service demanded.
Under date of February 16, 1916, the President by executive order formed the Interdepartmental Board on Coastal Communications for the purpose of considering the various means of communication along the coast of the United States under the control of the several executive departments and to submit recommendations as to the manner in which the different means of communication could best be coordinated, improved and extended for the purpose of (a) saving life and property; (b) for national defense; and (c) for administration in time of war.
After giving much study and consideration to the matter the board recommended, under date of November 13, 1916, that means be provided as soon as practicable to enable the Coast Guard to bring the then existing telephone system of coastal communication to a high state of efficiency and to extend the system to include all Coast Guard stations and to include certain important lighthouses. The President and the Congress approved of these recommendations and appropriations were made to carry them out.
This program was completed in the latter part of the year 1918 and involved the ultimate expenditure of about $1,200,000. The larger part of the construction work was performed by Coast Guard personnel. The Coast Guard is greatly indebted to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and associated companies for their assistance and advice. Many difficulties were encountered, especially after war was declared in 1917, when the cost of material increased, special apparatus was delayed in manufacture and competent personnel was being sent to the front. Much of the work was performed in out-of-the- way, sparsely settled localities, marshes, over sand dunes, and across stretches of water.
The project included changing obsolete, grounded circuit lines to metallic circuit; replacing old iron and copper wires with new; installing special types of telephones and other instruments in order to obtain efficient transmission and to connect the lines to the commercial telephone systems. Flexible as well as efficient long-distance telephone service was therefore assured. Special types of instruments were necessary because of the nature of the lines, many of which were very long and had a large number of telephone instruments bridging across one pair of wires; because of the long cables where transmission with the common type of telephone was impossible and because of other conditions not usually encountered in ordinary commercial telephone work. In other words, the then existing lines were brought up to date in accordance with latest telephone practice and all equipment standardized.
New telephone lines were constructed to connect Coast Guard stations (life-saving stations) with the commercial telephone system in the vicinity and also for furnishing similar service to all of the important lighthouses along the coasts. A number of these stations and lighthouses were located some distance from the mainland and it was necessary to lay submarine cables in order to connect them into the system.
As an illustration, off the coast of Maine a submarine cable was laid between the mainland and Matinicus Rock, and another to Mt. Desert Rock, each cable approximately twenty miles in length. On the West Coast a cable was laid to Tillamook Rock Lighthouse and one to St. George’s Reef. Both of the latter projects presented apparently insurmountable difficulties in connection with the laying of the cables, due to the great depth of water and the difficulty of landing and maintaining cables on the rock on which the lighthouses are situated. These rocks rise vertically to great heights out of the Pacific Ocean. However, these difficulties were finally overcome and cables successfully landed.
Another submarine-cable project included the laying of cables between Cape May and Cape Henlopen and across the Chesapeake Bay Entrance, by which means a continuous telephone circuit was provided running along the coast from Sandy Hook, N.J., to Morehead City, N.C., a distance of over 506 miles. Ninety-five Coast Guard units, thirteen lighthouses, fifteen Navy radiocompass stations and six miscellaneous units were connected thereto all in quick telephone communication with each other and with other parts of their organization. At intervals this circuit was connected into the commercial telephone system.
Another circuit was constructed beginning at Key West, Fla., extending along the railway viaduct of the Florida East Coast Railroad over the Florida Keys and ending at Carysfort Lighthouse off the Florida coast, 125 miles north of Key West. Other lighthouses off that coast, such as American Shoals, were connected into this circuit so that communication could be had with all of these outlying lighthouses, and from which reports of weather and marine disasters or other information could be obtained.
The telephone lines connecting the mainland with the Coast Guard stations on Plum Island, Washington Island, and Beaver Island in Michigan, form the only means of communication with the outside world. Submarine cables totaling in all about 125 miles were used to furnish telephone service to those islands. The longest continuous piece, connecting Beaver Island with the mainland, is thirty-two miles in length.
During this period of construction and reconstruction the United States entered the World War and the Coast Guard operated under the Navy from April 6, 1917, to August 28, 1919. The original program was therefore subject to modification and considerably enlarged due to military requirements. A number of military activities in the vicinity of these lines were connected to the system and supplied with telephone service. A number of radio-compass stations were established by the Navy on shore, and land-line communication to them in many instances was furnished over these Coast Guard land-line facilities.
The Coast Guard Coastal Communication System, as it exists today, began, therefore, a new life in the early part of 1919. Since that time the system has gradually grown, additions have been made and the entire system maintained in accordance with the advancing telephone art. It comprises about 185 separated and distinct telephone lines, varying in lengths from 1 to 506 miles, totaling approximately 3,000 miles, including about 500 miles of submarine cable. Each line connects with a commercial telephone exchange affording local and long-distance telephone service to some 500 units as well as intercommunication among them all.
The 500 miles of submarine cable of varying lengths presents a problem in maintenance. The Coast Guard cutter Pequot operates as a cable ship solely for this purpose. A well-formed and efficient organization composed of warrant officers and enlisted men, specialized in telephone work, is distributed along the coasts for the maintenance of the pole lines and instruments, all ready at an instant’s notice to give prompt service, should telephone service be interrupted or other break-downs occur on the lines. The same problems confront this organization as confront commercial companies, except that in many localities conditions are met with which are far worse than are encountered in many parts of the country traversed by a commercial system.
In winter when trouble develops, for instance on the line between Whitefish Point and Grand Marais, Mich., on the south shore of Lake Michigan, it means that the lineman must don snow shoes and cover the fifty miles through a blizzard-swept forest, where only a trail exists, carrying all his tools and repair kit on his back. The same scene might take place along the Hatteras coast on the open beach, except that the snow might be replaced by a driving sand storm. The main mission of this organization is to keep the telephone lines open in all weather and under all conditions. Under bad weather conditions telephone service is invariably needed, as upon that service may depend the saving of life or property at some point along our coast.
This Coastal Communication System plays an important role in the Coast Guard in addition to being of great humanitarian service to those who live on the isolated beaches along our coasts. Records are replete with instances involving the use of this system in quickly mobilizing at the scene of a shipwreck the life-saving crews of adjacent stations or in rapidly and promptly conveying to the proper authorities information of marine disasters in sight of the coasts. But for this agency there would undoubtedly have been greater loss of life or property in many cases.
In one instance alone the crews of twenty-two vessels stranded off the coast near Cape Henlopen, Del.—194 men—were rescued by surf boat, lifeboat, breeches buoy, and life car without the loss of one life, all through the rapid mobilizing of the crews of three stations called to the scene by the telephone. Time was an essential element and upon it depended success or failure.
Some stations are so remote from centers of activity that they receive their mail but once or twice a week. In the winter time the telephone system is their only means of communication with the outside world. The stations are often so scattered and isolated in thinly populated regions that no commercial company will stand the expense of linking them to its system. The Coast Guard has stepped in where those companies left off and has completed the circuits.
In these days, with radio predominant in the popular mind, the term “communication” is sometimes confused with “radio,” due perhaps to a realization of the important part radio plays in everyday life and in the daily operations of a military service. But the terms are in no sense synonymous. The one uses the other. Radio bears the same relation to communication that steam and electrical engineering bears to transportation.
Radio, together with the flashing light and all other such agencies, is but the servant of communications. Radio has played its part in the Coast Guard since the time the art was put to practical use. Communication with its vessels was not as involved in the early period of radio development as it is today; but few frequencies were employed; the scope of operation was not as extensive; and the number of messages from and to cutters was correspondingly small. The Algonquin was in 1907 the first radio-equipped vessel of the Coast Guard. The use of this science as it developed has broadened greatly the scope of activity and increased the usefulness of the Coast Guard, especially in connection with its work of rendering assistance to life and property at sea.
Until shortly following the World War, radio apparatus was comparatively simple, requiring very little in the way of engineering, and was more or less standardized. Radio transmitters of the spark or arc variety were standard equipment on all ships. Following the World War the radio art progressed rapidly. Radio communication over one or two channels in the ether was a thing of the past and necessitated more complicated and refined apparatus to accomplish the many things demanded in the way of communications.
The Coast Guard adopted a program having for its objective the replacement of all obsolete radio equipment with new, standard, modern apparatus. Difficulty was experienced in the beginning in the carrying out of the project, due to the rapid change and evolution in the radio art. It was not until about 1923 that modern radio for marine use had stabilized sufficiently to warrant the adoption of appropriate equipment. The selection of proper equipment depended of course upon various factors, all of which centered around the mission and various duties of the Coast Guard, including the requirement that insofar as practicable Coast Guard radio material fit readily into the plan of naval communications in time of war.
A Navy contribution to this radio program was the adoption by the Coast Guard, for installation aboard its major vessels, of the Navy Model TU (2 KW) radio transmitter. It was necessary to make a slight modification in order to obtain a greater range of frequencies and provide for telephone communication. This transmitter has given excellent results. Its installation on Coast Guard vessels conducting the International Ice Patrol off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland immediately increased the value and protective feature of that patrol as well as its effectiveness, making it possible to broadcast ice warnings to shipping over a greater area and affording quicker reliable communication with the interested agencies on shore.
With the help of commercial companies and with the encouragement and engineering advice of various government departments, other appropriate modern radio apparatus has been developed and installed so that today the Coast Guard is thoroughly modernized in radio material. The much condemned “spark” transmitter, with the exception of about ten sets retained solely for emergencies and not for regular operation, has been wholly discontinued. This is the Coast Guard’s reply to the action of the International Radiotelegraph Conference of 1927, which took steps to abolish the use of “damped waves” by the year 1940.
This program of replacement was accomplished in less than five years from the time of its inception. During that period there was involved an expenditure of about $2,000,000 for this replacement program and the installations on new units occasioned by the enlargement of the Coast Guard begun in 1923.
A short time ago Congress authorized the construction of ten first-class Coast Guard cruising vessels. This program is being carried out and during the past year five of these vessels have gone into commission. These represent the latest type of Coast Guard cutters, 250 feet in length, of 2,000 tons displacement. Installed thereon is the latest type of Coast Guard radio equipment. A description of that installation will give some idea of the radio equipment in the Coast Guard.
The main high-powered transmitter is the Coast Guard Model T-2 (2-KW vacuum tube), frequency range 125 to 550 kilocycles, the set which has been mentioned above as being similar to the Navy Model TU transmitter. This provides channels for communication with commercial stations, and the Coast Guard and Navy systems. A second transmitter of lower power (200 watts), covering intermediate frequencies between 249 and 550 kilocycles, is the Coast Guard Model T-4, used as an auxiliary and for supplementing the higher power equipment when shorter distances are to be covered. Inter-Coast Guard communication in the frequency band between 2,000 and 3,000 kilocycles using telephone and radiotelegraph, is provided through the medium of the Coast Guard Model T-7 transmitter (200-watt vacuum tube). Efficient radio communication today depends to a great extent upon good reception. Navy standard radio receivers, including the models RF and RG, are found on these new ships, together with certain special receiving equipment to meet Coast Guard needs, such as for radiotelephone communication.
One particular development which has occurred in the past few years may be of interest. In 1923 Congress authorized the Coast Guard to enter upon a program of enlargement having for its purpose the prevention of smuggling of liquor into the United States from the sea. This program included the building of some 250 small patrol boats, the majority of which were 75 feet in length, resembling in some respects the submarine chaser type, and a smaller number of larger vessels 100 to 125 feet in length. The nature of their work required reliable communication among themselves and with their home bases as well as with any other Coast Guard vessel.
A survey of the situation revealed that there was no radio equipment suitable for the purpose, either in stock among government departments, or under design by commercial or other interests. While the problem was similar to that which was solved in connection with communication among the submarine chaser type of boats during the World War, the radio art had advanced considerably since that time and the transmitters and receivers used on that type of vessels were not considered the proper solution of the problem. Time was an essential element as it was desired to rush the new boats to completion in order to begin operation at as early a date as possible. Again with the whole-hearted cooperation of other government departments and commercial interests, a transmitter and receiver were developed which have given even better results than originally anticipated, reliable telephone communication being carried on over a distance of 75 to 100 miles, with instances of 1,000 miles.
Three methods of transmission were provided: telephone, ICW, and CW, using frequencies in the band from 2,000 to 3,000 kilocycles. Telephony was adopted in order to reduce the number of radiomen needed, it being impracticable to train such a large number of operators in the short length of time available. In addition it was essential, of course, to reduce to the very minimum the number of men on board of one of these small craft. While the use of telephony in radio for handling communications between ships and between ships and shore has its difficulties, it has in this instance proved to be entirely practical. This same equipment has now been made standard throughout the service and is carried by all vessels of all classes and provides for inter-Coast Guard communication.
The 100- and 125-foot vessel of this program afforded more space for crew and equipment, and in addition to carrying the special inter-Coast Guard transmitter-receiver combination, was equipped with a 200-watt (Coast Guard Model T-5) transmitter employing a frequency below 550 kilocycles with an appropriate receiver.
Other uses of radio have been undertaken in the Coast Guard, such as its application to the radio compass, to aircraft and to the synchronizing of radio and sound signals for determining distances and bearing. A program is now being brought to a conclusion whereby every vessel will in the near future be equipped with a radio compass of modern design. The work demanded of the smaller vessels of the service in the anti-smuggling activities necessitated radio compass installations on them. The standard radio compass could not be used because of space and weight limitations. It was therefore necessary to design a small, compact radio compass particularly for these ships. These instruments operate within the frequency band which includes the radio compass, beacon, and distress frequencies. There is now under development a radio compass to operate on the higher frequencies, a problem which proves to be a baffling one. The Coast Guard is looking forward to its successful accomplishment in order to provide a radio compass which can be used in connection with small patrol boats equipped to use only high frequencies.
Aircraft activities in the Coast Guard are still limited in scope. In order, however, to provide for intercommunication between Coast Guard aircraft and other Coast Guard forces, especially with vessels equipped to operate in the 2,000- to 3,000-kilocycle band, special aircraft radio equipment has been designed by Coast Guard personnel. The development of aircraft radio is being watched with interest and will be applied to Coast Guard aircraft activities as the radio art in that field advances.
In this article it is possible only to touch on the major items under Coast Guard communications. Much could be written concerning its interest and participation in national and international communication matters; coordination and cooperation with other government departments; the application of underwater sound signalling; the laying and repair of submarine cable; and other allied subjects, many of which have not been touched on herein. However, it is hoped that the reader has been impressed with what the Coast Guard is doing in that important phase of military activity upon which successful and efficient operations are necessarily dependent.
It is desired to take this opportunity to express the appreciation of the Coast Guard Communication Service for the wholehearted cooperation, assistance, encouragement, and support given to it by other communication, radio, and associated services of the government, and of commercial companies, as well as the friendliness exhibited by the personnel of those organizations.