“It’s wonderful—wonderful, this wireless telegraph that keeps all the great ships and many of the small ones in constant communication,” 181 declared Powell Seaton, coming up on deck after having finished his meal. “Yet it seems odd, doesn’t it, to think of even freight boats carrying a wireless installation?”
“Not when you stop to consider the value of the freight steamships, and the value of their cargoes,” rejoined Tom Halstead. “If a ship at sea gets into any trouble, where in older times she would have been lost, now all she has to do is to signal to other vessels within two or three hundred miles, and relief is sent on its way to the ship that needs it. In the case of a freight steamer the wireless aboard means greater safety for the crew and often saves the owners the cost of ship and cargo. The Standard Oil people were among the first to think of the wireless for cargo-carrying boats. They installed the wireless on their tank steamers, and it wasn’t long before the owners of other freight vessels realized the value of such an installation. Now, every freight boat that amounts to much has the wireless aboard.”
“You speak of the wireless being used at a distance of two or three hundred miles,” pursued the charter-man. “Dawson can’t send the electric wave that far, can he?”
“No, sir; because our signal mast is shorter than that on a big steamship. The length of 182 our aerials is less. Still, we can handle a message for a pretty good distance.”
“What distance, Halstead?”
“Why, our ideal distance is about sixty miles; we can make it seventy easily, and, under the best conditions, we can drive a message, so that it can be understood, for about ninety miles. But that doesn’t really hold us down to even ninety miles. If there’s a wireless ship within our radius we can ask her to relay for us. With a few ships spread out at proper intervals we could easily wire direct from the ‘Restless’ to the coast of England.”
“Joe,” called Tom to his chum as the latter came on deck between wireless performances, “do you notice that the fog is lightening off to weatherward?”
“Yes; the fog is heaviest off to westward, and we’ve been working out of that.”
“By the time we reach the ‘Glide’ I believe we’re going to have some open weather around us.”
“It will be fine if we do,” nodded young Dawson. “It’s nasty work going up alongside of a big ship when you can’t see fifty feet away.”