The boys were so fascinated with the possibilities contained in the apparatus that it was only with reluctance that they left the roof and went to the studio. This they found to be a long, rather narrow room, wholly without windows, and with the floors covered with the heaviest of rugs. The reason for this, as their guide explained, was to shut out all possible sound except that which it was desired to transmit over the radio.
“What is the idea of having no windows?” asked Bob.
“So there shall be no vibration from the window panes,” replied Mr. Reed. “I tell you, boys, this broadcasting hasn’t been a matter of days, but is the development of months of the hardest kind of work and experiment. We have had to test, reject, and sift all possible suggestions in order to reach perfection. I don’t mean by that to say that we have reached it yet, but we’re on 195 the way. New problems are coming up all the time, and we are kept busy trying to solve them.
“It seems a simple thing,” he went on, “to talk or sing into that microphone,” pointing to a little disk-like instrument about the height of a man’s head. “But even there the least miscalculation may wholly spoil the effect of the speech or the music. Now, in a theater, the actor is at least twenty feet or so from the nearest of his audience and the sounds that he makes in drawing in his breath are not perceptible. If he stayed too close to the microphone, however, that drawing in of breath, or some other little peculiarity of his delivery, would be so plainly heard that it would interfere with the effect of his performance. So, with certain instruments. A flute, for instance, has no mechanical stops, so a flute player can stand comparatively near the microphone. The player of a cornet, however, must stand some distance back or else the clicking of the stops of his instrument will interfere with his music. These are only a few of the difficulties that we meet and have to guard against. There are dozens of others that require just as much vigilance to guard against in order to get a perfect performance. It’s a pleasure to explain these things to you, boys, for you catch on quickly.”
“We’re a long way from being experts,” said Bob, “but we’ve done quite a good deal of radio 196 work and built several sets of our own, so we can at least ask intelligent questions.”
“Well, fire away, and I’ll try to answer them,” replied Mr. Reed. “You may be able to stick me, though.”
He said this as a joke, but before they had completed a tour of the building the boys had asked him some posers that he was at a loss to answer.
“I almost think you fellows should be taking me around,” he said at last. “Blamed if I don’t think you know as much as I do about it.”