Collier's New Encyclopedia

A complete general encyclopedia of 1921 — the world as it was understood just after the Great War, from Aachen to Zwingli, across twelve volumes and six thousand pages.

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Directional Wireless

a term used to describe the general system whereby an aviator is kept informed of his position in the air by means of successive wireless signals from some known point on his route, the direction from which such signals come being indicated by various forms of recording apparatus carried on the airplane.

DIRECTION FINDER, or RADIO COMPASS, a term applied to any device by which a radio signal receiver is enabled to determine the direction of the sender. Particularly a device used in aviation in which the pointer responds to the control of radio waves from a certain station, being thus kept constant in one direction. A novel application of direction finding is the system of guiding ships through channels recently installed in Ambrose Channel, New York. A cable is laid in the middle of the channel and through this an electric current flows.

Sensitive detectors of magnetic waves, attached to the sides of incoming ships, are deflected by any departure from the cable, thus keeping the pilot instructed at each moment whether or not he is close to his course.

DISARMAMENT. (See WASHINGTON CONFERENCE, and LEAGUE OF NATIONS, 1921.)

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