Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

394 Radio Broadcast great handicap to merchant shipping in those waters. The United Fruit Company had inaugurated, as a part of its own radio service, a system whereby its ship captains kept each other advised as to weather conditions encountered. With the cooperation of the United Fruit Company, the U. S. Government was enabled to extend its Weather Bureau Observation Service to all the Company ships and shore radio stations. All the ship captains of the "Great White Fleet" were appointed special deputy weather observers, as were the chief radio operators at Burrwood, La., Cape San Antonio, Cuba, Swan Island, and Bluefields, Nicaragua. Weather observations from the Company ships and from these shore stations are made twice daily, and relayed through Swan Island and New Orleans and thence by wire to the Weather Bureau in Washington. These weather observations, in addition to those received by cable from the Windward and Leeward Islands by the Weather Bureau at Washington, enable it to report accurately the occurrence of hurricanes, plot their tracks and determine their force, and thus to issue reliable storm warnings for the information of all shipping and for the Gulf Coast of the United States and for Cuba, which has resulted in the saving of millions of dollars in property and of many lives. These storm warnings are broadcasted in the Gulf and the Carribean Sea by the United Fruit Company radio stations for the benefit of all shipping, and it not infrequently occurs that, through information thus disseminated, ships are enabled to steer clear of hurricanes or can be held in port until the storm has passed. While the Company's project for direct radio communication with Central America has been attained, owing to the recent marked improvements in radio apparatus it now plans further to improve its service by completely rehabilitating all of its ship and shore radio stations, with the end in view of ultimately establishing radiotelephonic communication with Central America. All of its Central American stations will be open to the public as soon as the necessary permits are granted by the respective governments. Its radio building programme contemplates the installation of tube transmitters for both radiotelegraphic and radiotelephonic purposes on its ships, enabling passengers to talk with the shore from their staterooms at any time during the voyage. The Tropical Radio Telegraph Company is now erecting in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, one of the most powerful tube transmitting stations on this continent, which it is expected will be in operation by December of this year. It is interesting to note in connection with this station that the 42o-foot steel towers, radio apparatus, oil engines and building materials must be shipped to Amapala, Honduras, on the Pacific coast, where they are lightered ashore and then hauled over an 8o-mile mountain trail to Tegucigalpa. Steel gangs and installing engineers have been sent from the United States. Powerful tube transmitting apparatus will also be installed at New Orleans and at a new station which the Tropical Radio Telegraph Company proposes to erect in the vicinity of Miami, Florida. The Tropical Radio Telegraph Company plans to have in operation in 1924 a tube transmitting station at Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, which will give direct communication with the United States through Miami and New Orleans. Later, similar equipment will be installed in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Swan Island, and possible in Cuba, so that probably by 1925 this great radio system will have been completed and the plan of the United Fruit Company to provide the general public as well as itself with a fast, reliable and instantaneous means of communication between the United States and Central America and Colombia will be complete. Further, what is perhaps of more importance to those countries, it will bring together out-of-the-way places and thus pave the way for closer commercial and political relations between the Americas. The United Fruit Company has spent more than $3,000,000 in the development of its radio system, and upon the completion of its projected radio building programme its investment in radio will" probably exceed $4,000,000. Radio operators in the service of the Fruit Company are all carefully selected men trained to meet its special requirements and to uphold the high standards of the Company. On its ships the radio operators rank with the pursers and have excellent cabin accommodations. The salaries paid to ship operators are based both on their ability and on length of service with the Company; chief operators receive from $105 to $140 per month and second operators from $85 to $105 per month, and found.