News: Medford - Submarine Signal Device (1939)

Transcriber: Robert Lipprandt
bob@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surname: Suits

----Source: The Star News (Medford, WI) 10/02/2014

Originally published in the Star News, September 28, 1939

A submarine signal device, on which he recently received a patent, also is a “death ray” for fish, Dr. C. Guy Suits of the General Electric research laboratory of Schenectady, NY, son of Mrs. O. M. Suits of Medford, has revealed.

The device, approximately the size of an automobile headlamp, sends sound waves, produced by a liquid space gap, through water for several miles. The signal can be received through the hull of a ship by listening devices.

Bacteria and tiny water life seem to be unaffected by the waves transmitted, but small fish are crushed and killed if they swim into the path of the beam immediately in front of the device.

Fortunately for the fish, there are no plans to make the new device commercially. Although tests were made in Boston harbor two years ago, not enough use has been made of the apparatus to show what advantages it may have over existing means of signaling.