“But now they’ve established at the Omaha field a one-thousand-watt transmitter, especially designed for the postal authorities, that has a range of from three hundred to five hundred miles in the day time and up to one thousand miles at night. And as none of the flying fields is more than five hundred miles from another, the field superintendents are able to keep in touch with the planes at almost any moment they are in flight.”
“Sounds good,” commented Joe. “But has it actually worked?”
“To the queen’s taste,” affirmed Bob. “One of the pilots tried it out yesterday between Omaha and North Platte. While traveling at the rate of one hundred and twenty miles an hour on a three-hour trip, the pilot kept up a conversation with the superintendents of two stations, and they could hear each other as plainly as if they had been in the next room. What do you think of that?”
“Dandy,” replied Herb. “Just think what that will mean to the pilot, especially in fog or storm. It won’t be necessary for him to see the light from the air-mail fields so as to be able to land. The superintendent can give him his location to a dot, and he can come down with his eyes shut.”
“Another triumph for radio!” exclaimed Joe. “I tell you, fellows, there’s no limit to the possibilities of that wonderful science. One thing follows so closely on the heels of another that a fellow gets dizzy trying to keep up with it.”
“It’s as though one were living in fairyland,” agreed Jimmy. “I have to pinch myself sometimes to see if I’m dreaming.”
“We surely are living in an age of miracles,” declared Bob. “I’ve given up thinking anything was impossible. I don’t give the merry ha-ha to anything, no matter how unlikely it sounds. Nothing can happen more wonderful than what’s taking place every day in radio. You can tell me that some day we’ll be talking to the men on Mars—if there are any men there—and I won’t be the one to say we can’t.”
“In other words, you’re ready to fall for anything,” laughed Jimmy, who had by this time recovered from the effect of the blow and was his own jolly self again. “But now, to get down to earth again, suppose you tell us where we’re going. We’re a long way from home.”
“It’s that appetite of Jimmy’s that’s beginning to talk now,” gibed Herb. “He knows it’s getting near supper time, and he doesn’t need any watch to tell him so. That stomach of his is a regular chronometer.”
“It came near having the works knocked out of it this afternoon,” chaffed Joe. “But I see that it’s still ticking. After all, it is getting rather late. Suppose we turn around and beat it for home.”