"That isn't clear to me."
"Well, high tension juice will flash over better under ultraviolet illumination. The tube must be high enough to exceed this distance by ten to one at the operating voltage of the stuff down the line. The boys in the Palanortis Jungles say they're a godsend, since there are a lot of places where the high tension towers would be impossible since the Palanortis Whitewood grows about a thousand feet tall."
"You'd cut a lot of wood to ream a path through from Northern Landing to the power station on the Boiling River," said Arden.
"Yeah," drawled Don, "and towers a couple of hundred miles apart are better than two thousand feet. Yeah, these things are the nuts for getting power shipped across country."
"Couldn't we squirt it out from Terra?" asked Arden. "That would take the curse off of our operating expenses."
"It sure would," agreed Channing heartily. "But think of the trouble in aligning a beam of that distance. I don't know—there's this two hundred miles' restriction, you know. They don't transmit worth a hoot over that distance, and it would be utterly impossible to maintain stations in space a couple of hundred miles apart, even from Venus, from which we maintain a fairly close tolerance. We might try a hooting big one, but the trouble is that misalignment of the things result in terrible effects."
The door opened and Chuck Thomas and Walt Franks entered.
"How's our playthings?" asked Walt.
"Cockeyed looking gadgets," commented Chuck.
"Take a good look at 'em," said Channing. "Might make some working X-ray plates, too. It was a lucky day that these got here before the boys from Terran Electric. I doubt that they'd permit that."