I was just about to tell her I had never thought of that, when Bob jumped in and explained it all as intelligently as though he were Sir Oliver Lodge lecturing on wireless before the Royal Society.
“You see, Mrs. Heaton,” he began, “an aerial when it is properly put up like this one really protects a house from lightning just as a lightning rod does, only better. Before a storm the air is charged with electricity and as the aerial is connected with the ground through that switch up there, the electricity as fast as it is formed is carried to the ground and this prevents enough of it from gathering to make a lightning stroke.”
Mother’s eyes brightened hopefully as she looked on this smart boy.
“Isn’t it wonderful!” she said, and went into the house perfectly satisfied that I was in good company.
The next move on my part was to get the receiving apparatus. This consisted of a detector, a tuning coil, a dry cell, a potentiometer, and a pair of head telephone receivers or head-phones as they are called for short. Bob helped me to make the detector because he said he could make a better detector than I could buy. When I got everything ready to hook up I was terribly nervous for I could hardly wait to try them out.
I had a diagram that Charlie gave me which showed exactly how the instruments were connected up, and as I wanted to be able to say “I did it myself,” and without the advice or criticism of any of the fellows, I started to work on it as soon as I got home. I used my imposing table to set the apparatus on and it was not long before I had it all wired up as per the diagram.
Verily I was a proud youth when I put on the head-phone, adjusted the detector and moved the slider of the tuning coil back and forth. I knew just how to do it because I had seen the other fellows make these same adjustments a thousand times.
“I can call spirits from the vasty deep,” boasts Glendower in Shakespeare’s play of “Henry IV.”
“Why, so can I, or so can any man, but will they come when you do call for them?” retorts Hotspur.
That just about states my case, for I could adjust the detector and run the slider back and forth on the tuning coil and so can any one else, but to be able to get a message is quite another matter. But then perhaps, as I thought, no one was sending, so I telephoned over to Bob and asked him to send something and to send it slow. I went back to my receiver but try as I would I couldn’t get a thing. Gee, but it was discouraging.