The Boy's Book of New Inventions

by Harry E. Maule

The scientist and his boy friend never tired of talking of these things, for the young man was one of the many amateurs who had mastered the art, so that many a night as he sat at his receiver he caught the messages of steamships far out on the broad Atlantic, and heard the Navy Yard station transmitting orders to Uncle Sam's ships at sea.

One day shortly after the Titanic disaster the boy said to his friend: "I saw by the paper to-day that they are talking of passing a law to prevent the amateur wireless operators from working. I don't think they ought to do that. I'm sure most amateurs never interfere with any signals, as was said they did in connection with the messages to and from ships that went to the rescue of the Titanic."

"So long as the amateurs do not have powerful sending apparatus," answered the scientist, "I don't think they will make any serious trouble, for it makes no confusion to have them 'listening in' on the passing radiographs. Of course with a powerful sender a mischievous person could work irreparable damage by sending fake messages of one kind or another. In fact there have been several instances of messages that were thought to be fakes, but I am sure no boy with the intelligence to rig up a wireless outfit, would be so lacking in understanding of his responsibilities as to try to confuse traffic.

"But it would be a shame to stop the amateurs altogether," he continued, "for, no matter what the companies may say, the wireless telegraph is still in an experimental stage, and we must look to the bright boys who are studying it now, for its greatest development. The marvellous strides in improving the apparatus, and solving the mysteries of electro-magnetic currents, that have been made in the last dozen years, should be eclipsed in the next decade, if young men with some practical experience and a desire to get at the real scientific basis of the art, work at it."

"What are some of the main improvements of the last few years?" asked the boy.

For answer, the scientist and the boy made a journey down to the steamship docks, and visited the wireless cabins of several of the big transatlantic liners. They also went to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where there is a wireless school, that turns out Navy operators after a thorough course in all the various branches of the art. While on vacations to the seashore, the youth had visited some of the big high-power stations that send and receive messages to and from the ships at sea.

In talking to the operators and electricians the boy learned much about the wide extent to which wireless is used nowadays. The law passed by Congress in the United States in 1911, making it necessary for every passenger steamer sailing from American ports with fifty or more passengers, to carry a wireless outfit capable of working at least 100 miles, in charge of a licensed operator, capable of transmitting 20 or more words a minute, did a great deal to increase the use of wireless. Also, not only the actions of one government but the concerted action of all the civilized nations represented at the various international wireless conferences have brought it to the official notice of the whole world.

Thus it has become a commercial reality on the sea, and the Great Lakes, and also it has become a big factor in war. All of the nations, besides having their warships equipped with wireless, now have wireless squads in the army, and have small compact apparatus that can be transported in small wagons, or even on horses' backs. These portable army wireless outfits are very valuable for the communication between detachments of an army, particularly in places where there are few disturbing elements to intercept the electro-magnetic waves.

In the recent campaign in Tripoli, in the war between Italy and Turkey, the wireless was extensively used by the Italian army in the field, and it was found that the messages radiated over the desert just about as well as over the sea. Of course as will be seen later, it is not meant here to convey the idea that wireless cannot be sent over the land, for the electro-magnetic waves travel through the ether in every direction, and as the ether fills the whole universe, mountains, buildings, or water just as well as the air, the waves are thought to go through obstacles as well as over water. The difficulty in sending over land, is that there are various electrical disturbances that intercept and confuse the wireless waves. In other words, wireless works through mere physical obstructions without any difficulty, just so long as certain little known electrical disturbances do not interfere. Just think of the thousands and thousands of wireless messages that are passing through the ether every hour of the day and night. And yet the scientists really know very little about the laws that govern them!

One of the instances of the strange antics of wireless was told to the boy by an operator who had been in charge of the wireless outfit on a Hudson River boat. He said that he and the operators on the other boats were able to communicate with a station on shore until they had passed the Poughkeepsie bridge, and the great steel and stone structure stretched between the boat and the station. Immediately communication stopped short and all efforts failed to get any response. A series of experiments proved that the obstruction was at the bridge, but whether it was some electrical property in the bridge itself, or in the hills on each side of the bridge, they have never been able to find out, and the land station was finally discontinued.