"I am afraid it will take us a long time to learn," she said to Amy, sighing. "We shall have to buy a regular telegraph set and learn in that way."
"I wish you wouldn't talk about learning anything!" cried her chum. "Vacation is slipping right away from us."
After a few moments the spark stopped snapping, the operator closed his switch and removed his harness. He wheeled around on the bench and welcomed them. He was really a very pleasant young man, and he explained many things about both the radio-telegraph and radio-telephone that the girls had not known before.
He was so friendly that Jessie ventured to ask him about the new super-regenerative circuit in which she was interested.
"Yes. I'm strong for that new thing," said the wireless operator, enthusiastically. "In the first place, it was invented by the man who originated the ordinary regenerative circuit so much in use at present, and also of the super-heterodyne circuit. I understand this new circuit permits a current amplification up to a million times, and all with three tubes. You know, to reach such a high mark with your ordinary regenerative circuit, many more tubes would be necessary."
"I understand that," said Jessie. "But can an amateur build and practically work this new circuit?"
"Why not? If you follow directions carefully. And with the new outfit a loop is just as effective an antenna as an outside aerial. They say, too, that to catch broadcasting for not more than twenty-five miles, not even a loop is needed, the circuits themselves acting as the absorbers of energy."
"I'm going to try it," declared Jessie, with more confidence. "But I feel that I understand so little about the various forms of radio, after all."
"You have nothing on me there," laughed the operator. "I am learning something new all the time. And sometimes I am astonished to find out how, after five years of work with it, I am really so ignorant."
The girls had a very interesting visit at the station; and from the operator Jessie and Amy gained some particular instruction about sending and receiving messages in the telegraph code. He received several messages from ships at sea while the girls remained in the station, and likewise relayed other messages received from inland stations both up and down the coast and to vessels far out at sea.