The Use of Consol in the Fishing Fleet

Extract

The present-day trawler carries more aids than any other vessel of comparable length and tonnage and, more often than not, more than the majority of big liners and cargo ships. She carries a powerful wireless transmitter giving an output in the neighbourhood of 100 watts in the modern sets; a main receiver with a standby, or emergency one, for listening in to ships of the same Company for information regarding the state of fishing in their areas; and one or two direction finders, one of which (known as a ‘fish snatcher’) is tuned to the trawler wave band to take snap bearings of rival ships who may be on a better living and foolish enough to say so. So far as Consol is concerned the direction finder is used to ascertain the sector in which the vessel is, should the accuracy of the dead reckoning position be in doubt.