That night there was a crowd in the a.s.sembly room. Every student was there, half the town, many people from the country around and a few friends of the school from various distances. Doctor Field introduced the occasion briefly. Professor Grant gave a talk on the history and rapid growth of radio communication. Professor Judson, a.s.sistant in physics, talked on the "little bottles," as the vacuum tubes are often called. Professor Search talked on the possible future of radio. Then the Doctor arose again and said:
"We want to have members of our student body, also, express to you our interest in this great subject. We are fortunate to have this year a pupil who, though yet a freshman, has shown an unusual grasp of the technicalities of radio. I am going to ask Mr. William Brown to explain briefly some of the methods employed in building, or selecting, a radio receiving set, such as those he has been engaged in making here at the school. His a.s.sociate, Mr. Augustus Grier, who is an artist, in mechanical matters at least, will aid Mr. Brown at the blackboard."
Bill laid aside his crutch and hobbled forward to the platform, followed by Gus, whose easy motions were in direct contrast. A round of applause greeted the boys. This was increased and a burst of laughter added when Gus took a piece of chalk and with a few quick strokes made what suggested a broadcasting station, with a rooster shouting "c.o.c.k-a-doodle-doo" into the transmitter. Then he drew a lot of zigzag lines to indicate the Hertzian waves, and at the other end of the board, a hen listening in and registering horror when she hears the sounds translated into "quack, quack." Meanwhile, Bill had plunged headlong into his subject.
CHAPTER VIII
RADIO GALORE
"A good many folks," said Bill, "get scared when they think about radio construction. The big words come at them all in a bunch like a lot of bees, and it is to dodge. And when they go to the dictionary they are lost for sure. Potentiometer, variometer, variocoupler, radio frequency, amplification, loop aerials, audion and grids--no, I am not saying these words to show off. They are only a part of radio terminology. And you"ve got to get "em, or you might as well take radio theory and construction on faith and be satisfied simply to listen in.
"Anybody can commit these words to memory without a dictionary, and that"s where my partner shines. He has heard the big words so much that he talks them in his sleep, and he ought to know all their meanings, but the one most his size is "grid.""
Here Gus drew a much scared boy, with hair on end and knees knocking together, surrounded by a lot of the words that Bill had p.r.o.nounced.
Then Bill, putting his hand to the side of his mouth and leaning toward his audience as though in confidence, said in a stage whisper:
"He"s doing that to show that he knows how to spell these words.
"To be serious about it, if I"m allowed," continued Bill, "this subject of radio is a coiner in every way. Just think of someone saying something in San Francisco and someone else in Maine listening to it, and without any speaking tubes, nor wires to carry the sound along! A good many folks are wondering how it happens--how speech can be turned into electricity that goes shooting in all directions and how this is turned back into speech again.
"Well, it"s done on the telephone, over wires. The voice in the receiver is turned into electric energy that pa.s.ses over the wires and at the other end turns again into sounds exactly like the voice that started it. But somebody found out that this same energy could be shot into the air in all directions and carried any distance, maybe as far as the stars, and then when pretty much the same principles were applied to this as to the telephone, with some more apparatus to send and catch the energy, why, then, that was wireless.
"It is really too bad, with all the useless short syllables in our language going to waste, that the fellows who got up the terms for radio work couldn"t have used words like "grid," for instance. They could have called a variocoupler a "gol," a potentiometer a "dit," an induction coil a "lim," (l-i-m) and a variable condenser would look just as pretty if it were written out as a "sos"--but no! They forgot the good example set by the grid, the volt and the ohm and they went and used jawbreakers.
"I"ll tell you another thing that makes this electro-motive force as used in wireless easier to understand. It is the sun and its light. A great scientist, Doctor Steinmetz, says that light and electric waves are the same thing. Perhaps they are, though they surely work differently under different conditions. But if the sun has an awful lot of heat it can"t send it ninety-five million miles--not in reason! The heat only makes light and that light travels through s.p.a.ce. It reaches the atmosphere of our earth and is converted into heat again. Perhaps light of the sun and stars and the reflected light of the planets do not shine through s.p.a.ce as light, but as radio waves that either by our atmosphere, or by our electrical conditions here are converted into light again,--but this is hardly open to proof even."
Bill glanced at the blackboard; Gus had drawn a big sun, with radiating rays, a grinning face, a small body with one short leg and two gesturing hands and had labeled it "Bill Brown, radio radiator." Bill made a motion of his thumb toward the caricature, then spread his hands in mock despair, but not without a side glance expressing pride in his lieutenant"s performance, all of which pleased the audience immensely.
Then Bill proceeded: "This electro-motive force which travels around and through our little earth is what we can actually experiment with. We do not know just what it is, but we are finding out pretty fast what it will do. Perhaps there is hardly any limit to what it will do. It is generated for power and light and heat, for carrying signals and sounds over wires and through the air. What next? Just now we have got all the thinking we can do about radio. It is the sixth wonder that electricity has sprung upon us. I guess we won"t include electrocution.
"Now, there"s no use going into technicalities about construction, that"s a thing that must be studied out and thought over, not mussed up in a talk like this. I"ll say this much, however, it is the vacuum or audion tube detector that gives results, and the application of a loud speaker is only possible with a vacuum or audion tube. It is as easy to build a vacuum tube set as a crystal set and only a very little more expensive. So, whether you are building or buying a set, make it a good set, something that you can hear with a good many hundred miles.
"Now, you can buy the parts and build a receiving set that will generally give more satisfaction than a bought set." (Bill stepped over to the blackboard and took up a pointer.) "I may need this for this partner of mine if he persists in caricaturing me instead of drawing what we want. We"ll make things about four times as big as they ought to be. You can use an aerial outdoors, which everybody now understands, or, just as well and a lot handier, a loop aerial indoors, the bigger the better, but two feet in diameter is big enough.
"Here is your base and upright panel and this is the way to hook up or wire the parts. Here"s your aerial and its ground, between which is placed your variable condenser and tuning coil, thus, off here between condenser and coil comes the wire to your vacuum tube, with its fixed condenser and grid leads, the wire being connected directly to the grid, while here the wire from the tube plate is connected with the six-volt storage battery and in turn with the phones, like this. Then, from the phones to the ground wire, the wire is carried thus through a secondary dry cell battery, on each side of which the wires are taken off to a rheostat, though my partner has sketched this to look more like a bird after a caterpillar.
"I am not going to tell you how to make all these parts--if I did you"d probably go to sleep, if you are not half way there already. So, if you can"t find out how to make the parts, or contrive them in some way yourself, why, then, you"d better buy them. Only you can make the base and do the wiring, attaching and so forth. Even my partner can do that if he is watched pretty closely; it is almost as easy as making a sketch of it.
"If any of you really want to know how to build a radio set in a practical, get-there way, all you"ll have to do is to get Doctor Field"s consent and come round to our shop in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the school dormitory and we won"t soak you much. I thank you all for your attention."
Very warm applause indicated the approval of the audience, as Bill and Gus left the platform. Again the president arose to say:
"Another of our students has a message for us in regard to radio. Among the notable pioneers and probably one to give the subject its greatest practical impetus is William Marconi, whose name is familiar to you all.
The great inventor is now an honored guest of this country, his yacht _Elettra_ lying off our sh.o.r.es. It seems doubly fitting that more than special mention should be made of him, and as Mr. Antonio Sabaste was, in his native land, a neighbor of Marconi, his father being really a friend of the wizard, I think we shall listen with pleasure to what this student of the school has to say."
CHAPTER IX
MARCONI
"My native country," said Tony, speaking very slowly in an effort to get the construction of his sentences in accordance with Bill"s coaching and as per his written arrangement, "is Italy; my adopted country is America. I say both with pride, and therefore you can imagine with what delight I speak about one of the greatest of Italians and one of the greatest among the scientists of the world, to Americans who perhaps most appreciate and make use of his discoveries.
"Guglielmo Marconi lived not far from Bologna. His father"s estate is called "Villa Griffone." Not far from these many acres was my former home, and my father, who is a little older than Signor Marconi, knew him well, as well indeed as anyone might know one who was from boyhood a rather shy, retiring fellow, with a mind given over largely to mechanical experiments and caring very little for playfellows.
"Signor Marconi, the elder, was proud of his son"s tendencies and gave him mechanical toys when Guglielmo was only a little fellow. His mother was a beautiful English or Irish lady and she also encouraged her son in his tastes. Electricity had a strange fascination for the boy and as he grew older and began to grasp the theories and methods employed in its use he addressed himself more and more to electrical phenomena, never being content with mere performances, but being eager to know the precise methods of application and effect.
"At first Guglielmo had tutors and he led them a merry chase to keep up with his questions. Then, when still young, he was sent to an advanced school in Leghorn, later entering the University at Bologna. But with all that he learned of theory and practice concerning what had become his hobby, he obtained more knowledge at home, for his investigations were not along discovered routes, but in new fields.
"When Guglielmo was only sixteen his father had provided him with all the instruments and apparatus he could wish for and he knew no handicaps of this kind.
"In this country a poor boy, without social hindrances, has an equal chance with a rich lad. In my native land, in Europe I think, the lad with means has a better opportunity. Here you have many great men in every walk of life who have been poor, but over there that is a rare thing. Wealth brings opportunity and quick recognition. Guglielmo had this advantage, but if he had not also possessed an earnest, painstaking and brilliant mind he could have gained no distinction. Most of his acquaintances led pleasure-loving, easy, indolent lives and he could have done the same thing. Therefore, what credit is due Guglielmo for the great success he has achieved!
"While Guglielmo was still in his teens he turned his father"s estate into a vast laboratory and experimenting station. His great success seemed to come from using all outdoors as his workshop.
"In this way he learned the magic of sound waves and vibrations, so that he could send his "telegrams" without a wire. His first experiments were for only a few yards. Then he made the distance longer and longer, little by little, till at the end of five years of constant, persevering trial, with thousands of failures to be sure, he sent an air message two miles.
"Of course, people made fun of him. They thought he was a crank, if not downright crazy and said that his father was very foolish indeed to encourage him in wasting so much time and money in a way that every person with common sense could see was worse than merely simple.
"Guglielmo set his rude transmitting apparatus on a pole on one side of a field and on the other side a corresponding pole was set up and connected with a receiving apparatus.
"The young inventor"s interest must have been keen and his hopes high as he sat and watched for the tick of his recording instrument, that he knew should come from the spark sent across the field. Weeks had been spent in the building of these instruments, now to be tested.
"Suddenly the Morse sounder began to record the distant transmission and the boy"s heart gave an exultant bound--the first wireless message had been sent and received.
"Many experiments followed. Varying heights of poles were used and it was found that the distance could be increased in proportion to the alt.i.tude of the poles.
"In these first experiments of the young inventor he used practically the same methods that he employs to-day. The transmitting apparatus consisted of electric batteries, an induction coil by which the force of the current is increased, a telegrapher"s key to make and break the circuit. Batteries were connected with the induction coil and the telegrapher"s key was placed between the battery and the coil.
"One spark made a single dot, a stream of sparks the dash of the Morse telegraphic code, and with this crude apparatus, sometimes failing to record the signals, Marconi labored with growing faith. He knew he was on the right track and persevered. When he had succeeded in sending a message two miles through the air, Guglielmo determined that it could be two hundred, or two thousand miles, but he chose a shorter distance to prove his theory. He went to the English Channel and before long the world was astounded to learn that this young stranger and experimenter had sent a wireless message over thirty miles. A little later dispatches were sent through the air across the English Channel and received from the Isle of Wight to Land"s End, more than one hundred and eighty miles distant.
"This youth, twenty-one years old, had succeeded in accomplishing a feat the possibilities of which can hardly yet be conceived. Then Marconi came to London to upbuild and link nation to nation more closely. He was well received in England and began his further work with all the encouragement possible. A series of tests followed that were astounding.
Messages were sent through walls, houses, through hill and dale, proving beyond a doubt that the electric waves penetrate everything.
"A few years later, when Marconi was twenty-four, he made wireless reports of the Kingston regatta for evening papers in Dublin, Ireland.
This attracted Queen Victoria"s attention at her summer residence at Osborne House, also on the Isle of Wight. At this time the Prince of Wales, who afterward became King Edward the Seventh, was ill on his yacht. This was soon connected with the Queen"s summer castle and one hundred and fifty messages pa.s.sed between the suffering prince and his royal mother.
"All these wireless marvels--they seemed miracles then--made William Marconi world-famous before he finished his twenty-fifth year.
"But Guglielmo--I like the Italian p.r.o.nunciation of his name better,"
continued Tony, "for I am afraid, if I did geeve the English form, I should turn it into Beel." He smiled at our hero who had come down from the platform to a front seat and sat listening intently, and Bill Brown shook his head deprecatingly.