“And if he doesn’t get his set fixed, we can send with ours, when we get nearer,” said Tom.
“To be sure!” assented his father. “I’d almost forgotten that--it’s been so long since you boys were called upon.”
Interested as they were in everything pertaining to radio, the two boys hurried to the radio room and found Bancroft busy at his instruments and thoroughly exasperated.
“It’s just got my goat!” he exclaimed, as he glanced up at the boys’ arrival. “I never ran up against anything like it. I’ve been over the antenna and the insulation, and I’ve worked back to the inductance and the condensers. Everything seems ship-shape and yet the whole blamed thing seems dead. Current’s all right, I’ve tried new tubes, and the wave meter and ammeter tests are O. K. and yet I can’t get a blessed reply.”
“Well, that doesn’t prove you’re not sending,” declared Tom. “How do you know the trouble isn’t in the station you’re trying to get? Maybe your messages are going out all right and they get them but can’t send back.”
“Oh, I’m not such a boob as not to think of that!” retorted Bancroft. “I’ve tried four different stations and not a reply from any. And the radio compass is in the same fix. It’s downright uncanny, I tell you. Look here! The filament oscillates and the ammeter registers and yet I’ll bet there isn’t a wave going out. It’s just as if the thing were short circuited somewhere, but I can swear it’s not. I’ve even hooked up a whole new set.”
“Say, I’ve an idea to test it and be sure you’re not sending,” cried Tom. “I’ll go over to the radio-compass and listen and you send and see if I hear anything. Then I’ll send and see if you can hear. If there’s even a trace of waves, we ought to get them at a few yards away.”
“That’s a great scheme,” agreed Bancroft enthusiastically. “And say, I wonder if your sets are all right.”
“We’ll try them too, after we do this,” said Tom as he left the room.
But Tom’s scheme was a dismal failure. Although the set at the radio compass seemed in perfect working order, he could detect no sign of a message from Bancroft’s instruments a few yards away and when: he returned to the wireless room, Bancroft reported! that he had heard nothing.