The State (Columbia, South Carolina), March 25, 1918, page 3:
CAMP JACKSON HAS ITS OWN DAILY NEWSPAPER
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Gets Messages From Arlington and in a Few Minutes Copies Are Posted on One Hundred and Thirty-five Bulletin Boards at the Camp.
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Camp Jackson has its regular daily newspaper, extras included, in the morning and evenings radio news bulletins issued by the Three Hundred and Sixth Radio Battalion. The wireless service is delivered regularly every morning and when any news of importance is received during the evening. Bulletin boards are scattered throughout the camp with proper facilities for holding the bulletins so that the 135 copies distributed daily reach practically every man in the camp. These bulletin boards have been erected in every Y. M. C. A. building at division headquarters, and at the majority of the regimental and battalion headquarters. The radio service closes at about 11:30 every night so that the news bulletin is mimeographed and ready for distribution before the earliest newspapers reach the camp. These bulleting are delivered to the various bulletin boards by motor cycles.
The official government news service sent out from Arlington furnishes the news for the bulletins which is received at the Three Hundred and Sixth Field Signal Battalion's big wireless station located in the officers' building. The receiving outfit which is the largest of its kind in any cantonment is the feature of the camp signal-corps apparatus. The aerial with its 190 foot span was constructed only after weeks of careful designing and is practically perfect in such details as directed, spacing and counterpoise. As a result the station has never missed connection with the big sending stations. This adds regularity to the news service in addition to its official nature and its freshness. The wireless news is always abreast of the times and in some cases has been as much as 24 hours ahead of the regular newspapers.
The aerial is the biggest factor in the success of the set but the instruments used are the latest word in wireless design. The audion set used is of a special United States Signal Corps design and with it the Three Hundred and Sixth wireless experts can hear practically around the world. They have picked up messages from all the big United States stations and many foreign stations including the big German station at Naun, Germany. The camp station has been in constant communication with Arlington, Sayville, Key West and the various training camps and cantonments.
A man is kept at the receiver every hour of the day and night so that no news will be missed. All news of importance is bulletined and such is the speed of their organization that it rarely requires over half an hour after the news is received to get it to the bulletin boards. The news of the bombardment of Paris was received Saturday afternoon and in fifteen minutes after its receipt men were reading the news from first bulletin boards over an hour before the papers could get off an extra.
Among the most spectacular, yet at the same time most useful pieces of machinery at the camp are the signal battalion's radio tractors. These are complete modern receiving and sending sets mounted on White trucks. The aerial which is of the umbrella type is erected on a telescoping pole, which when extended its full length reaches up about 100 feet. The different sections of the pole fit into each other and can be put together with ease even under battle conditions. The sections are carried on the side of the tractor.
The power for the sending set is generated by a self contained power station driven by the White engine. The sending set, which is unusually powerful for a portable station, will under good weather conditions carry up to 1,000 miles. It is this set that is used in the communication with the various camps. The receiving set, while differing slightly from the stationary set used at the other station, is of the same modern type.
All other methods of message transmission are used by the battalion. Communication has been established with Columbia and messages in the international code have been sent from a specially constructed signal tower at the battalion to men stationed on top of the Palmetto Bank building. The battalion has received 74 of the government homing pigeons and begun training them. Trial flights are being given every day, gradually growing longer and longer. The birds are all returning regularly but to prevent their loss every bird is banded with a little metal ring marked U. S. A. 18 and the number of the bird. They can also be further identified by the fifth large feather of the left wing which is marked with the letter D. S. 151.
The battalion is in command of Maj. Samuel R. Todd and it is to him that a large measure of its success is due. Lieut. Charles H. Hammond also assisted materially in the designing and construction of the division wireless station.
The battalion was originally recruited in Rochester, N. Y. and is made up largely from men from Rochester and the adjacent towns.