Realizing the potential of these applications of acoustics to hydrographic surveying and navigation, particularly along the United States West Coast, where fog frequently interfered with attempts to fix ship positions accurately, Colonel Ernest Lester Jones, then Director of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, in consultation with Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps officers, decided to investigate the use of acoustics in both depth finding and navigation. With his acoustics experience in World War I, Heck, who by then was Chief of the Coast and Geodetic Survey's Division of Terrestrial Magnetism, was the obvious choice to lead this effort. By January 1923, the Coast and Geodetic Survey had decided to install a Hayes sonic rangefinder – an early echosounder – aboard the survey ship USC&GS Guide, which the Coast and Geodetic Survey planned to commission into its fleet later that year, and when Heck contacted E. A. Stephenson of the U.S. Army Coastal Artillery Corps to inform him of this plan and to inquire further about the Vineyard Sound experiments, Stephenson suggested that a system of hydrophones detecting the sound of underwater explosions could allow Coast and Geodetic Survey ships to fix their position while conducting surveys.
