Chapter 17

THE LAWS OF THE AIR

Morning found Mr. Crowninshield in no more tractable a mood. Even before Bob could reach his post at the wireless station and adjust his double head receiver to his ears his employer came briskly across the grass with his after-breakfast cigar between his lips.

"Well," began he, when he was within calling distance, "any news yet?"

"I'm afraid not yet, sir. It is still early."

The great man took out his watch.

"Isn't it almost time for O'Connel to signal?"

"It is nearing the time."

"I wonder if he will have any tidings for us?"

"I certainly hope so." The wish was uttered with deep sincerity. A speculation was forming in the young operator's mind as to how he was going to pacify the irascible gentleman before him should no tidings come.

"Since I'm here I believe I'll drop down and wait until you get into touch with the _Siren_."

"It is liable to be quite a little while. Sometimes there is delay."

"No matter. I've nothing especial to do to-day."

With sinking heart Bob turned away and began to fuss with his oil can and a bit of cotton waste.

"As you will, sir," was all he said.

"You think, don't you, that we will hear something definite this morning?"

"There is no telling."

"No, of course not. Nevertheless O'Connel can at least let us know whether Lola is worse or better."

"Yes, we ought to ascertain that."

"He wouldn't be such an idiot as to stand by and see the dog die, would he?"

"One never can predict just what another person will do. However, I feel sure you can trust O'Connel. I never knew him to bungle anything yet."

With that comfort Mr. Crowninshield was obliged to content himself.

Notwithstanding it, however, he began to pace nervously back and forth, and every time there was a sound in the room he would whisk about with the quick remark:

"Didn't you hear something?"

But although he fretted and fumed, strolled out the door and in again, no amount of impatience appeared to hurry matters.

Even Bob began to lose his poise and fear no message was coming when suddenly the well-known signal came and the familiar clockwork began to be clicked off.

"Is it he?" demanded Mr. Crowninshield in a tense whisper.

Bob nodded.

On clicked the code. Then suddenly it stopped and the man who was watching saw the operator raise the discs of rubber from his ears and shake himself free of his metal trappings.

"Well?" inquired Mr. Crowninshield in quick staccato.

"It was O'Connel. All he said was: _Wait developments._"

"Not a word about Lola?"

"No, sir."

"Not a reference of any sort?"

"That was all."

"But that is no kind of a message," announced the exasperated owner of Surfside. "Why, it might mean almost anything."

"It sounds hopeful to me."

"I don't see any hope in it," was the despondent answer.

"It least it gives us to understand that something is brewing."

"But why couldn't he have told us more?"

"Perhaps he did not dare to. They may have begun to suspect he was sending private messages."

"Humph! I had not thought of that."

"Or possibly he may have been in a rush. He sent the letters at a tremendous pace--so fast that I had to race him. It seemed as if he was afraid he might not be able to get the message through."

"You didn't answer anything, I suppose."

"Only my signal to let him know I was listening."

"Then you think there is nothing more to be done at present but sit right here and see what happens?"

"I do not see how we can do anything else."

"It's frightfully annoying."

"Yes. Nevertheless it is our only course."

"You've no inkling whether the developments he mentioned are to be soon or not?"

"Not the ghost of an idea."

"Then there is nothing for it but to hold on right here a while longer, I'm afraid. And since we are all to be tied to the spot you may as well come up to the house later and give Dick his usual radio lesson."

"Very well, sir."

With a curt nod the financier went out the door and after seeing that everything was right Bob locked up the building and followed him.

He found the little group assembled in the lee of the awnings waiting for him. Mr. Crowninshield was there, too, gnawing fiercely at a fresh cigar.

"I hear you have had a message, Bob," Mrs. Crowninshield said as he approached.

"Yes; a rather hopeful one, I think."

"I'm so excited! We all are. What do you suppose is in the wind?"

"I've no idea. Something good, I hope."

"Is that Morse code hard to learn?" inquired Nancy.

"The Morse Continental? That depends on what you consider hard," smiled Bob. "If your memory is good and you are quick at catching sounds it ought not to be very awful. Numberless persons do learn it."

"Of course sending messages after you have the code learned cannot be so bad, for you can take your own time," Dick put in. "It is receiving them that would fuss me."

"We'll fix you up with a buzzer and let you and Walter practice later if you want a try."

"Could you?" asked Dick eagerly.

"Sure! Moreover, there are phonograph records made on purpose to be used by beginners. Perhaps your father will get you some of those. It is a fine way to learn, training your ear to the sounds and giving you lots of practice."

"What a bully scheme!"

"It is a good proof of how one science can help another, isn't it?" observed Mrs. Crowninshield.

"I suppose transmitting is a great deal harder than receiving anyhow, isn't it?" pursued Dick.

"Well, of course there is more to it. In the rough it is merely the reverse of receiving; but in reality to project a message through the air requires a more elaborate outfit."

"But you said our wireless would send as well as receive."

"Oh, it will. It was made with both ends of the service in view. Your apparatus would first have to be adjusted and tuned until it was at the same frequency as the station with which you were talking. That you have to do anyhow, whether you are sending or receiving. And I told you, you remember, how to regulate that. Your antenna is connected through an adjustable induction coil, and moreover you have a small condenser which together with it forms a closed circuit. It is simple enough when you understand the principle to adjust the vibratory motion in the antenna by moving the connection. The frequency of the closed circuit can be adjusted, too. Tuning is nothing more than putting these two circuits into accord with the waves you receive. Your detector does a good part of the work for you, for it responds to every oscillation set up in the receiver. When, however, you are transmitting a message, you must take care to cut out your receiver by turning on the switch. Never forget that. You won't be likely to, either, when you are told why. You see it requires power to send out transmission waves and therefore to do it you have to employ a high-pressure current. Receiving, on the other hand, demands delicately adjusted instruments which are equipped to catch every faint, incoming wave. Should you let the strong charge of electricity used for transmission pass through your fragile receiving apparatus you would ruin it in no time."

"I can see that," replied Dick.

"Grasp that notion and you have one big principle of the difference between sending messages and receiving them," said Bob. "Skill in learning to take messages either in code or cipher comes with practice. The more you work at it the faster you can go. You have a keyboard all installed and the only thing standing between you and an expert operator is patience. Speed comes sooner than you think, too, if you practice persistently every day. As for the Morse code you press the key lever down quickly and instantly release it to make a dot. A dash is equal to three dots; the space between the parts of the same letters is equal to a dot; that between two letters to three dots; and between two words to five dots. You must train your ear until the span of these intervals becomes unmistakable. When you get some skill and are ready to try out what you can do, you will find that there are several ways of getting wider practice. There are, for example, local clubs that broadcast in code and send messages limited in speed to an amateur's capacity. Such centers are considerate enough to transmit at the rate of not more than five or ten words to the minute. It is persistence and a willingness to go slowly and carefully that win out in the end. A moderately delivered message that is without errors is worth a dozen fast, inaccurate ones; for when you blunder and have to go back and repeat, you not only waste your time and that of the man at the other end of the line but you annoy and usually confuse him. You will never gain anything if you are content with being a sloppy operator since above everything else radio messages must be correct. That is their chief value. Therefore, if after trying with all your might you find you cannot qualify as a topnotch, high-speed man be content to drop into the class below and be an accurate, slower operator. There are always certain things we do better than others. Speed may not be one of your gifts. That is no sign you have not other talents, however. Face the fact and go into the class where you belong. You won't get so nervous and fussed up, and by and by you may surprise yourself by finding that with time and experience the desired speed will come."

"I am not aiming to be a crackerjack like you," grinned Dick. "If I can take down and send any messages at all I shall feel pretty cocky."

"You think that now," returned Bob, ignoring the flattery contained in the observation. "But by and by you will find yourself discontented and as crazy to make time as you are in an automobile. There is a fascination about it."

"Doesn't the Morse Continental bother you a bit?" inquired Mr. Crowninshield.

"Not a particle. In fact, it has come to be almost as easy reading as straight English," answered Bob. "The thing that does fuss me sometimes though is to send and receive in cipher."

"Mercy! Do they do that too?" gasped Mrs. Crowninshield.

"Certainly. Often both in time of war and times of peace confidential messages which it is not desirable all the world should know have to be transmitted. Sometimes these are government communications; sometimes business or personal ones. At any rate, their senders wish them kept private and hence they are sent in cipher. Many of them are queer enough, too, when they come in."

"Can you understand them yourself?" asked Nancy.

"Certainly not. It is not intended that any one except the person for whom they are intended shall know what they mean."

"But I should think since they make no sense you would wonder whether you had them right," commented Dick.

"I do wonder sometimes," admitted Bob honestly. "When you get a sequence of queer words or combinations of letters you cannot help wondering. However, there is not much chance for a mistake, either in the transmission or in the delivery of such messages, for the operator is always obliged to send them slower than he does ordinary stuff, spacing the letters or groups of letters with unusual care. Furthermore, code words are always repeated once. This gives the man receiving them a chance to print the letters by hand rather than write them, a precaution that does much to prevent mistakes. The address and signature must also be very carefully transmitted. With such watchfulness at each end of the line it would be only a colossally stupid person who would blunder."

"But suppose the operator who is transmitting went faster than you could?" murmured Walter.

"He doesn't as a general rule. It isn't wireless ethics. And even should he be a more skillful radio man he knows he would gain nothing by hustling the chap at the other end for he would only lose time by having to go back and repeat."

"Is all the general transmission of messages given such care?" inquired Mr. Crowninshield.

"Of course cipher communications are fussier," Bob said. "Nevertheless the rules are pretty strict for all messages. And since accuracy is the keynote of radio and to get it your outfit must be in A1 condition, every care must be taken to have strong, clear, and effective sending and receiving power. That means you must constantly clean your apparatus and tighten it up; test out your detector by the buzzer intended for the purpose and make sure that it is in sensitive condition; and assure yourself that every part of your set is OK. Moreover, an operator who is on duty listening in is expected to wear the double head receiver all the time, so no sound, however faint, may get by him. He must also see that his detector is adjusted to its greatest degree of sensibility and his tuner to the proper wave length. If your station happens to be near another, or if you are one of a group of ships and other vessels near yours are sending, you must watch out and either weaken the coupling of your detector or open your switch and cut it out altogether when those around you are using powerful currents for transmission; else you will wreck this delicate part of your instrument."

"Gee, but there are things to remember!" ejaculated Dick.

"Not so many, really, if you use ordinary brains," Bob returned. "You just have to think, that is all. A few big principles hold throughout. The other _don'ts_ are simply to make your own work and the other fellow's smoother; prevent mistakes; do away with as much interference as possible; and protect your outfit. For example, I found I could often lessen the interference by loosening the coupling of my receiving set after I had heard a call and reduce the sound to a point where it was just readable. You get your message all right but you do not get so much else with it. Then you can save wear and tear if you only run your generator while you are sending messages. That you cannot transmit at the hours reserved for naval radio stations to send out the time signals by which navigators set their chronometers, or when operators are broadcasting, goes without saying. Any dunce would know that."

"I had no idea there were hours for sending out the time," confessed Dick.

"Indeed there are. It is very important, too, that ships know the correct time to prevent disasters. There are shore stations whose sole duty it is to supply to ships the time and their location. Don't you recall my mentioning such coastal stations?"

"Oh, yes; I guess I do remember now," returned Dick, a trifle confused.

"What happens if you call a station and nobody answers?" interrogated Nancy. "I have been meaning to ask. Do you just keep on calling as you do at the telephone?"

"No, indeed," was the instant reply. "Should you do that you would cause no end of interference and make yourself a nuisance to everybody. The rule is that after you have called a station three times at two-minute intervals you must stop for a quarter of an hour before you call again. If you happened to be calling a fleet of ships it is desirable to alter your tune rather than keep repeating the summons in the same key. It saves time. Merchant ships and coast stations must, however, be called in the wave length definitely specified for their use."

"Shipboard stations seem to have more rules than the others," commented Dick.

"Not more rules but different ones," Bob said. "You see their nearness to other ships makes this imperative. Each ship has to take care not to knock out the apparatus of its neighbor by inconsiderate use of a high-power current; also it must not cause undue interference. In other words, a bevy of ships, like a group of persons, must be courteous to one another. If a ship within a ten-mile radius of another is receiving signals that are so faint that they are difficult to distinguish, a neighboring vessel should not complicate matters by trying to transmit a message until the other ship has received what was coming in. This rule makes for ordinary politeness, that is all."

"Couldn't the ship waiting to talk send a message in a different wave length?" inquired Dick.

"Oh, yes; that would be quite possible, if the tune varied enough to make it perfectly distinct."

"But what about high-power stations?" demanded Walter. "They handle important stuff and of course cannot keep stopping for other people to talk. Don't their powerful currents damage the receiving sets in stations near them? I should think they might even injure their own."

"High-power, or long-distance stations have still another problem to meet and they meet it in a different way," responded Bob. "In order that the currents they are obliged to use shall not destroy detectors and other delicate receiving apparatus they carry on what are known as duplex operations. That is, the receiving station is constructed at some distance from the sending station--often several miles away--and the two parts of the service are performed independently by different antennæ. In this way sending and receiving can be carried on at the same time in slightly varying wave lengths."

"But how can they talk and act as one station if they are so far apart?" questioned His Highness much puzzled.

"It is not as impossible as it seems. The operator at the sending station has a small sending key connected by electricity with a relay at the receiving station. By means of a lever and certain complex paraphernalia this key can be used as the sending key for the main apparatus. Thus the station operated by distant control carries on a duplex system of transmission so that both sending and receiving stations are kept in touch with one another."

"That is clever!" interrupted Mr. Crowninshield.

"A high-power station has to be ingeniously equipped," responded Bob, "for it does a great deal of business, rapid business and business that is important. In some stations so fast do the messages come in and so long are they that an automatic tape not unlike that seen at the stock exchange is used to make perforated records of the dots and dashes. Later this punctured slip can be run through a Morse writer and the message taken down at leisure by the operator. Or sometimes photographic or phonographic records are resorted to and these like the others can be reproduced at a slower rate of speed and interpreted by the operator."

"I should like that and then I wouldn't have to hurry," murmured Nancy.

"It must be jolly to be an operator in a long-distance station," mused Dick, "where real things are going on."

"Perhaps it is," was Bob's nonchalant answer. "I fancy, though, that very vital government messages go in cipher. Uncle Sam isn't risking having his secrets published far and wide over the face of the whole earth. Although for that matter all radio messages are secret."

"But how can they be if any and everybody can listen in?"

"Well, on a high-power wave length probably ordinary persons would not be able to listen in. Their apparatus would not be equipped for it. Should a station be able to, however, during critical periods, such as times of war, the government takes no chances and orders all but certain specified stations dismantled. That puts an end to intruders unless a spy has a hidden wireless somewhere; and if he has he takes an almighty risk with his neck, that is all I can say," concluded Bob with a grin.

"But operators have tongues and can talk," Mrs. Crowninshield suggested. "Don't they sometimes?"

"Usually they do not know what the message passing through their hands means," Bob answered. "But even should they contrive to study it out they would not dare repeat it because of the penalty entailed."

"Penalty?"

The young operator nodded.

"You would not have to concern yourself much about blabbers if you heard what happens to them," piped Walter, who suddenly found himself on ground which previous instruction had rendered familiar. "It's off with their heads!"

"Not really!" gasped the horrified Nancy.

"Oh, he does not mean literally," the elder brother explained. "But it is away with their license which is almost as disastrous a fate to a man who has planned to make his living by wireless. Nor is the loss of the license all that happens. In addition one is liable to a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar fine or three years' imprisonment."

"Jove! They do come down on you!" Dick averred.

"Ra-_ther_! You know, of course, that if you violate any clause of your radio agreement you may be fined one hundred dollars; and should an operator fake a distress call the fine is twenty-five hundred dollars, or five years in prison and perhaps both. Even the smallest fine one can get off with for such an offense is two years behind the bars. It makes you think twice before playing that little joke. The government is wise, too, to spread it on thick, for to fake an S O S which is given the right of way over every other signal would be a contemptible trick. Mild punishments like fines and imprisonments would be too good for the wretch who would so deliberately mislead people. Moreover a few such offenses would cause the importance of the call to be discredited so that in time nobody would be in a rush to pay attention to it."

"I didn't realize an S O S so invariably had the right of way," meditated Dick. "Of course I knew it was the distress signal at sea."

"S O S in the International Morse Code is the universal distress call adopted by the common consent of our civilized nations at the wireless convention held at Berlin in 1906. Every radio station ashore or afloat is obliged to give it first place and do everything possible to further its demands. When a distress call is heard all ships and stations everywhere that hear it are in honor bound to stop whatever they may be doing and listen; nor must they try to talk with the ship herself unless she asks them to. Instead, after she has sent out her call for attention, which is equivalent to our _Hello_ of the telephone, she gives her name; the name of the station or ship she wishes to talk with; states what the matter is; and defines as nearly as she is able her position. This done she sends out a general call and if the station or ship she has asked aid from has not caught the signal and fails to answer her, any operator within hearing may do so. The instant he begins to talk with her, however, all the others listening in must remain silent. At last, when the message is delivered or the necessary conversation at an end, then the ship's radio man sends out a broadcast to let everybody know that he has finished so that all stations may resume their regular routine."

"Some system!" breathed Dick.

"I guess you would think there was some system if you were to see a book of radio rules," returned Bob. "I'll show you mine some day. All the various shore stations have their many regulations, as I have told you before; shipboard stations have theirs; and even the amateurs are protected so that every class may get fair play and not bother his neighbor. Wireless stations, you see, are not mere toys. They have work to do and must be able to do it unhampered."

"I'd like a glimpse of that manual," suggested Dick.

"I'll bring it round to-morrow," Bob answered, glancing at his watch and rising.

The others rose too.

"I suppose it would be no use to listen in for O'Connel again," remarked Mr. Crowninshield.

"I will if you like," Bob responded. "I doubt, though, if it would do any good."

"No, I guess it wouldn't. We shall just have to wait," sighed the man.