“You hit the bull’s-eye the first time,” Herb conceded. “In other words, instead of having a concert for four have it for fourteen or forty.”
[CHAPTER IV—FACING THE BULLY]
The radio boys ruminated over Herb’s suggestion for a little while.
“The idea itself is all right,” pronounced Joe slowly, “but the trouble is that we couldn’t do it very well with this set, which is the best we’ve been able to make so far. We can hear the sound that comes over the wire well with these earpieces glued to our ears, but the sound would be lost if it were spread all over the room.”
“Wouldn’t the horn help out on that?” asked Herb.
“Not by itself, it wouldn’t,” answered Bob. “It’s a mistake to think that the horn itself makes the sound or increases its loudness. The only use of the horn is to act as a relay for the diaphragm of the receiver and connect it with the air in the room. But the sound itself must first be in the receiver. And with a crystal detector, such as we’re using in this set, I’m afraid that we couldn’t get volume of sound enough. It would be spread out over the room so thinly that no one would be able to hear anything. We’ll have to amplify the sound, and to do that there’s nothing better than a vacuum tube. That’s the best thing that the world has discovered so far.”
“I guess it is,” remarked Jimmy. “Doctor Dale has one in his set.”
“Yes,” chimed in Joe. “He even has more than one. The more there are the louder and clearer the sound.”
“I don’t suppose we could make one,” Herb remarked.
“No; that’s one thing that costs real money,” replied Bob. “But don’t let that bother you. I’ve got quite a lot left of that hundred dollars of the Ferberton prize, and there’s nothing I’d rather spend it for than to improve the radio set.”