Abstract :
The paper describes the installation of a cathode-ray direction-finder on board a ship and observations on longwave stations and atmospherics during a voyage from Port Said to Brisbane. Directional observations of long-wave wireless stations at distances of from 1 000 to 5 000 miles showed little evidence errors in bearings, and the bearings obtained were compared with the calculated ones to find the quadrantal error due to the ship. Systematic daily observations of atmospherics on 30,000 metres gave intersections suggesting tropical thunderstorm areas, particularly one in Central Africa, as the main sources during most of the voyage, but round the coast of Australia the predominant sources were in the northern interior of that Continent. The directions of these sources in Australia are shown to correspond to areas of low barometric pressure accompanied by thunderstorms in those regions.
