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Once in the wireless field, he progressed rapidly, has now to his credit many a radio invention. He devised the radio compass, by which ships can calculate the position of nearby vessels from a single wireless message. Hero Captain George Fried located the sinking Florida (TIME, Feb. 4) by means of a Kolster compass, when, after initial S. O. S. signals, the navigating instruments of the Italian freighter went overboard. In conjunction with the compass Kolster developed a system of radio fog signals, which, when generally adopted, should eliminate the traditional and romantic, but imperfect, foghorn. Mr. Kolster also worked for ten years (1912-22) with the radio department of the U. S. Bureau of Standards, assisted in drawing up the radio regulations by which the Department of Commerce governs broadcasting activities.
*Subsidiary of potent Union Carbide & Carbon Corp.
*Incorporated as Federal-Brandes, Inc. Kolster assumed its present title April 10, 1928.