Ahoy Shipmates

Interesting facts from The Great White Fleet

The first use of the Wireless Telephone was aboard the ships of the Great White Fleet to communicate between ships and to communicate with shore stations. The system was designed by Dr. DeForest and had a range of about seventy five miles. In late 1907, DeForest managed to convince the U.S. Navy to purchase his new company's arc-transmitter radiotelephone sets for the fleet's around-the-world voyage. Although the sets saw a small amount of use for communications, and were also used for occasional broadcasts of phonograph records, they were far from ready for reliable day-to-day use, and were scrapped at the end of the voyage.

In early 1909, the Washington Evening Post reported that:

"Unsatisfactory results have been obtained in the use of the wireless telephone apparatus [that was] installed on board the vessels of the American fleet before it started on the cruise, and probably the apparatus will be removed from the ships. It had a thorough test by the officers of the fleet under all conditions, and their reports indicate that it has seldom been of any service. Future development of the system may result in its perfection, but at its present stage it is found to be a failure."

It wouldn't be until 1916 that the navy would again investigate ship-based radiotelephony, this time using Western Electric produced vacuum-tube transmitters.

The next instalment will be the USS Nebraska

Regards


Sean