The audience began to arrive early. A large space had been roped off in front of the central bungalow and furnished with rows of campchairs. The boys had set up the loud-speaking horn on a small table on the porch, running leads from it to their apparatus in the living room. This enabled them to operate the set out of sight of the audience.
By eight o’clock almost everybody was in his place, waiting expectantly, and in some cases somewhat sceptically, for the music to begin.
But they had not long to wait. Inside the bungalow the boys, excited and tense, heard the familiar voice of the announcer at WJZ, the big Newark broadcasting station. While he was speaking the boys had the horn outside disconnected, but with their head phones they tuned until the announcer’s voice was distinct and clear and all other sounds had been tuned out. Then, as the announcer ceased speaking, and in the brief pause that ensued before the first selection on the program started, the boys connected in the loud-speaker on the porch.
The concert commenced. Violin solos, vocal selections, and orchestral numbers followed each other in quick succession, every note and shade of tone being reproduced faithfully by the radio boys’ set.
The audience sat in absorbed silence, listening spellbound to this miracle of modern science. At intervals they could not resist applauding, although the artists producing the music were many miles away. When the concert was over at last there was a regular storm of handclapping and calls for the boys, who at length had to appear on the porch, looking, it must be confessed, as though they would rather have been almost anywhere else.
Cries of “Speech! Speech!” came from the audience, and at last Bob stepped forward.
“We’re mighty glad if all you folks enjoyed the concert,” he said. “We boys are all very much interested in radio, and we want to have everybody know what it is like. Maybe before the sanitarium gets finished you’ll have to listen to another concert,” he added, with a grin.
Cries of “we hope so” and “make it soon” came from the audience, which then dispersed with many expressions of commendation for the evening’s entertainment.
When the receipts for the evening were counted it was found that they had taken in over four hundred dollars, which was soon turned over to the trustees of the sanitarium.
The concert was the chief topic of conversation in the neighborhood for the next few days, and the radio boys were deluged with requests for information concerning radio and radio equipment. They were somewhat surprised at the furor caused by their concert, but that was probably the first time that most of those present had ever heard radio music or had reason to give more than passing thought to the subject.