Evening star., 1941-11-30
Navy Finishing Plant
AT North Beach, Nd,
For Secret Radio Tests
New Bronch Of Bellevue
Laboratory Is Free
From Interference
BY CLAUDE A. MAHONEY,
Star staff Correspondent.

NORTH BEACH. Md, Nov. 90
At the top of a 109-foot cliff along
the west side of Chesapeake Bay
little south of this town, the Naval
Research Laboratory is completing
an extension project that may solve
or simplify many Of its most acute
radio testing problems.
Along these quiet shores, the most
secret devices of the Navy will be
tested. A powerful location and de-
lection apparatus. only recently
limited at officially by the Navy, may
be checked in the waters where Capt.
John Smiths men once mutlnled.
saving the famous explorer was lost.
The station, composed of three
structures-a laboratory, overseers
house and dormitory-Will be an
annex of the larger station at Belle
vue. D. c.. and will enable scientists
of the laboratory to carry on many
experiments that cannot be salts
factorily conducted in highly popu-
lated areas,
Non Interference Essential.
It is no longer possible to conduct
the most delicate tests OF ship RADIOS
and radio equipment IN a region
that is crisS- crossed with hlgh-ten-
SION wires and beset by loWfylng
airplanes. So the research labora-
tory has picked a rural site for Its
new work shop that commands
view of nearly Is miles of Chesa-
peake Bay.
Somewhere near the middle of this
bav is the steamer channel and all
manner of craft ply back and forth
to Baltimore. This same deep-Water
lane will accommodate battleShips
tina might come near the new lab
oratorv for two-way tests. cine
British battleship King George V
came farther than this point when
il brought Lord Halifax to a point
near Annapolis, and the new battle
ship North Carolina here found
quiet waters for tests last summer
after she had made her firing trials
on the Atlantic ocean,
Bv making the tests off the Mary
land shore it is thought that the
work of taking heavy loads of test
ing equipment aboard ship will be
obviated.
Test Tower All of Wood.
There is an octagon tower, about
% by % feet, above the main build
ing. a tower built entirely OF wood
TO keep out even the fainteSt trace
of interference. Approach wires are
buried for the same reason. In ad-
dition to the testing space in the
tower there will be a series of con-
crete platforms near the edge OF
the cliff where instruments may be
set up in the open. Proof OF the
value of the locality as a radio
center is the fact that few hum
dred yards north of the new labora-
tory there is set of mystery"
radio towers. said to be operated
bv another Federal agency.
No equipment is in the labora-
tory as yet. and exactly what is to
90 in is, of course, a naval secret.
There is a dormitory with quar-
tiers for from six to nine men, and
additional quarters in the care
takers building. 1t is expected that
most of the workers will be transi-
tory, working at the laboratory only
on specific details. 1t is also thought
that manufacturers representatives
may come to the station and re-
main while their products are being
tested. The six or seven acres in
which the buildings are located are
heavily fenced, and military guard
will be maintained.
1t probably will be necessary in
the near future to erect some sort
of a barrier or sea wall at the
base of the cliff to prevent erosion
of the shore line. The cliffs are
part of the long line of high banks
known to historians and geologlsts
as the cliffs of Calvert"