“You fellows ought to practice up on receiving and sending,” he said. “You can’t really claim to be full-fledged radio fans until you can do that.”
“That’s just what we were speaking of on our way here,” said Bob. “If it wouldn’t be asking too much of you, we’d like nothing better than to have you show us how.”
“Well, of course, it doesn’t take very long to learn the international code, and after that it’s chiefly a matter of practice,” said the radio man. “I have a practice sending set here now, and if you like I’ll give you your first lesson.”
The boys were only too glad to take advantage of this friendly offer. Harvey had a simple telegraph key, connected up to a buzzer and a couple of dry cells. The buzzer was tuned to give a sound very much like an actual buzz in an ear-phone. In addition he had a metal plate on which all the letters of the alphabet were represented by raised surfaces, a short surface for a dot, and a long one for a dash. The low spaces in between were insulated with enamel. In this way, if one wire was attached to the brass plate and the other brushed over the raised contact surfaces, each letter would be reproduced in the buzzer with the proper dots and dashes.
The boys found this device a big help, as they could memorize the proper dots and dashes for each letter, and then by moving the wire along the plate could hear the letter in the buzzer just as it should sound.
“But with this thing, it seems to me you don’t need to take the trouble to memorize the code,” said Herb. “Why, I could send a message with it right now.”
“You could, but it would be a mighty slow one,” replied Brandon Harvey. “That thing is useful to a beginner, but it wouldn’t work out very well for actual sending. It’s too clumsy.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s so,” admitted Herb.
“You fellows can take that along with you when you go,” said the radio man. “You can dope out the code from that, but you’ll need a key to practice with, too. If you like, I’ll lend you this whole practice set until you get a chance to buy one yourselves.”
“You bet we’ll take it, and many thanks!” exclaimed Bob. “We should have brought something of the kind down with us, but we didn’t, so your set will be just the thing for us.”