On reaching the veranda he found his class assembled and the first comment to reach his ears was:
"No news from O'Connel, eh?"
"No, Dick."
"What in thunder do you suppose has become of him?"
Bob put his finger to his lips and taking the hint the boy abandoned the subject, inquiring instead:
"Isn't it a bore to have to listen in at just such a time every day whether it is convenient or not—I mean when you are in charge of a station."
"Sometimes it is," Bob responded. "Still, it is your job and you expect to put it first and fit your own affairs in around it. Besides, you get used to the regularity of the hours and soon do not notice the monotony of the rules. You can readily understand why, at all official radio stations, somebody must always be on the watch for S O S calls. On shipboard there are three classes of wireless stations: those having continual service with an operator who always has his ear to the receiver while the ship is in motion; those where the office is open only at stated hours and an operator listening merely for a limited time; and those whose operators have no fixed time beyond listening in the first ten minutes of each hour."
"The ship decides which kind of station it will have, I suppose," Nancy remarked.
"Indeed it doesn't," Bob contradicted, with a shake of his head. "The government saves the vessel that trouble. It defines exactly the sort of station when it issues the license. Uncle Sam also bestows on each of these stations a name or combination of letters by which it shall be known and under which it is officially listed. Each country has a prescribed number of such letters allotted for its use at the International Convention at Berne, and our nation is authorized to use groups beginning with N and W; also triple groups of KIA to KZZ. You will find all these call letters in a book that contains the wireless telegraph stations of the world, a volume issued by the international publication office at Berne."
"Can any one get one?" inquired Walter.