letter "s" at an hour corresponding to 12.30 A.M. in Newfoundland.
Great was the excitement and suspense in Cornwall when the hour for
the test arrived. Forgetting that they were sleepy, the staff crowded
about the sending key, and the little building at the foot of the
ring of great masts supporting the aerial shook with the crash of the
blinding sparks as the three, dots which form the letter "s" were sent
forth. Even greater was the tension on the Newfoundland coast, where
Marconi sat eagerly waiting for the signal. Finally it came, three
faint ticks in the telephone receiver. The wireless had crossed the
Atlantic. Marconi had no sending apparatus, so that it was not until
the cable had carried the news that those in England knew that the
message had been received.
Because Marconi had never made a statement or a claim he had not been
able to prove, he had attained a reputation for veracity which made
his statement that he had received a signal across the Atlantic carry
weight with the scientists. Many, of course, were skeptical, and
insisted that the simple signal had come by chance from some ship not
far away. But the inventor pushed quietly and steadily ahead, making
arrangements to perfect the system and establish it so that it would
be of commercial use.
Marconi returned to England, but two months later set out for America
again on the liner _Philadelphia_ with improved apparatus. He kept in
constant communication with his station at Poldhu until the ship was
a hundred and fifty miles from shore. Beyond that point he could not
send messages, as the sending apparatus on the ship lacked sufficient
power. Messages were received, however, until the sending station
was over two thousand miles away. This seemed miraculous to those
on shipboard, but Marconi accepted it as a matter of course. He had
equipped the Poldhu station to send twenty-one hundred miles, and he
knew that it should accomplish the feat.
A large station was set up at Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and regular
communication was established between there and Poldhu. With the
establishment of regular transatlantic communication the utility of
Marconi's invention, even for work at great distances, was no longer
open to question. By quiet, unassuming, conscientious work he had put
another great carrier of messages at the service of the world, and he
now reaped the fame and fortune which he so richly deserved.
XVIII
THE WIRELESS SERVES THE WORLD
Marconi Organized Wireless Telegraphy Commercially--The New Wonder
at the Service of the World--Marine Disasters Prevented--The
Extension of the Wireless on Shipboard--Improved Apparatus--The
Wireless in the World War--The Boy and the Wireless.
With his clear understanding of the possibilities of his invention,
Marconi was not long in establishing the wireless upon a commercial
basis. He is a man of keen business judgment, and as he brought his
invention forward and clearly demonstrated its worth at a time when
commercial enterprise was alert he found no great difficulty in
establishing his company. The first Marconi company was organized
as early as 1897 under the name of the Wireless Telegraph and Signal
Company, Limited. This was later displaced by the Marconi Telegraph
Company, which operates a regular system of stations on a commercial
basis, carrying messages in competition with the cable and telegraph
companies. It also erects stations for other companies which are
operated under the Marconi patents.
With the telegraph and the telephone so well established and serving
the needs of ordinary communication on land, it was natural that the
wireless should make headway but slowly as a commercial proposition
between points on land. For communication at sea, however, it had no
competition, and merchant-ships as well as war vessels were rapidly
equipped with wireless apparatus.
When the great liner _Republic_ was sinking as a result of a collision
off the port of New York in 1903 her wireless brought aid. Her
passengers and crew were taken off in safety, and what otherwise would
have been a terrible disaster was avoided by the use of the wireless.
The utility of the wireless was again brought sharply to the attention
of the world. It was realized that a wireless set on a passenger-ship
was necessary if the lives of the passengers were to be safeguarded.
The United States Government by its laws now requires that
passenger-ships shall be equipped with wireless apparatus in charge of
a competent operator.
One of the early objections made to the wireless was its apparent lack
of secrecy, since any other receiving apparatus within range of the
waves sent forth by the sending station can receive the signals. It
was also realized that as soon as any considerable number of stations
were established about the world, and began sending messages to and
fro, there would be a perfect jumble of waves flying about in all
directions through the ether, so that no messages could be sent or
received.
Marconi's answer to these difficulties was the tuning apparatus. The
electric waves carrying the messages may be sent out at widely varying
lengths. Marconi found that it was possible to adjust a receiving
station so that it would receive only waves of a certain length.
Thus stations which desired to communicate could select a certain
wave-length, and they could send and receive messages without
interfering with others using different wave-lengths, or without the
receiving station being confused by messages coming in from
other stations using different wave-lengths. You know that when a
tuning-fork is set in vibration another of the same pitch near it will
vibrate with it, but others of different pitch will not be affected.
The operation of wireless stations in tune with each other is similar.
[Illustration: A REMARKABLE PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN OUTSIDE OF THE CLIFDEN
STATION WHILE MESSAGES WERE BEING SENT ACROSS TO CAPE RACE
The camera was exposed for two hours, and the white bars show the
sparks leaving the wires for their journey through the air for
seventeen hundred miles.]
[Illustration: MARCONI STATION AT CLIFDEN, IRELAND
These dynamos send a message straight across the ocean.]
An example of the value of tuning is afforded by the manner in which
press reports are sent from the great Marconi station at Poldhu. Each
night at a certain hour this station sends out news reports of the
events of the day, using a certain set wave-length. Each ship on the
Atlantic and every land station within range which is to receive the
reports at that hour adjusts its receiving set to receive waves of
that length. In this way they hear nothing but the Poldhu news reports
which they desire to receive, and are not troubled by messages from
other stations within range.
Secrecy is also attained by the use of tuning. It is possible that
another station may discover the wave-length being used for a secret
message and "listen in," but there are so many possible wave-lengths
that this is difficult. Secrecy may also be secured by the use of code
messages.
Many of the advantages of tuning were lost by the international
agreement which provided that but two wave-lengths should be used for
commercial work. This, however, enables ships to get in touch with
other ships in time of need. With his telephone receivers the operator
can hear the passage of the waves as they are brought to him by his
aerial and the dots and dashes sound as buzzes of greater or less
length. Out of the confusion of currents passing through the air he
can select the messages he wishes to read by sound.
You may wonder how one wireless operator gets into communication with
another. He first listens in to determine whether messages are coming
through the ether within range in the wave-length he is to use.
Hearing nothing, he adjusts his sending apparatus to the desired
wave-length and switches this in with the signal aerial which
serves both his sending and his receiving set. This at the same time
disconnects his receiving set. He sends out the call letters of the
station to which he wishes to send a message, following them with
his own call letters, as a signature to show who is calling. After
repeating these signals several times he switches out his sending set
and listens in with his receiving set. If he then gets an answer from
the other station he can begin sending the message.
Marconi was not allowed to hold the wireless field unmolested.
Many others set up wireless stations, some of them infringing upon
Marconi's patents. Others have devised wireless systems along
more original lines. Particularly we should mention two American
experimenters, Dr. de Forest and Professor Fessenden. Both have
established wireless systems with no little promise. The system of
Professor Fessenden is especially unique and original and may be
destined to work a revolution in the methods of wireless telegraphy.
With an increase in the number of wireless stations and varieties
of apparatus came a wide increase in the uses to which wireless
telegraphy was applied. We have already noticed the press service
from Poldhu. The British Government makes use of this same station to
furnish daily news to its representatives in all parts of the
world. The wireless is also used to transmit the time from the great
observatories.
Some of the railroads in the United States have equipped their trails
as well as their stations with wireless sets. It has proved its worth
in communicating between stations, taking the place in time of need
of either the telegraph or the telephone. In equipping the trains with
sets a difficulty was met in arranging the aerials. It is, of course,
impossible to arrange the wires at any height above the cars, since
they would be swept away in passing under bridges. Even with very low
aerials, however, communication has been successfully maintained at
a distance of over a hundred miles. The speed of the fastest train
affects the sending and receiving of messages not at all. It was also
found that messages passed without hindrance, even though the train
was passing through a tunnel.
Another interesting application of wireless telegraphy is to the
needs of the fire-fighters. Fire stations in New York City have been
equipped with wireless telegraph sets, and they have proved so useful
in spreading alarms and transmitting news of fires that they seem
destined to come into universal use.
The outbreak of the world war gave a tremendous impetus to the
development of wireless telegraphy. The German cable to the United
States was cut in the early days of the conflict. The sending power
of wireless stations had been sufficiently increased, however, so that
the great German stations could communicate with those in the United
States. Communication was readily maintained between the Allies by
means of wireless, the great stations at Poldhu and at the Eiffel
Tower in Paris being in constant communication with each other and
with the stations in Italy and in Russia.
Portable field sets had been used with some slight success even in the
Boer War, and had definitely proved their worth in the Balkans. The
outbreak of the greater war found all of the nations equipped with
portable apparatus for the use of their armies. These proved of
great use. The field sets of the United States Army also proved their
utility in the campaign into Mexico in pursuit of Villa. By their
means it was possible for General Pershing's forces to keep in
constant touch with the headquarters in the United States.
The wireless proved as valuable to the navies as had been anticipated.
The Germans in particular made great improvements in light wireless
sets designed for use on aircraft. The problem of placing an aerial on
an aeroplane is difficult, but no little headway has been made in this
direction.
It is the American boy who has done the most interesting work with the
wireless in the United States. While the commercial development
has been comparatively slow, the boys have set up stations by the
thousands. Most of these stations were constructed by the boys
themselves, who have learned and are learning how best to apply this
modern wonder to the service of man. So many amateurs set up stations
that the Government found it necessary to regulate them by law.
The law now requires that amateur experimenters use only short
wave-lengths in their sending, which will not interfere with messages
from Government or commercial stations. It also provides for the
licensing of amateurs who prove competent.
The stations owned and operated by boys have already proved of great
use. In times of storm and flood when wire communication failed they
have proved the only means of communicating with many districts. In
time of war these amateur stations, scattered in all parts of the
country, might prove immensely valuable. Means have now been taken to
so organize the amateurs that they can communicate with one another,
and by this means messages may be sent to any part of the country.
One young American, John Hays Hammond, Jr., has applied the wireless
in novel and interesting ways. By means of special apparatus mounted
on a small boat he can by the means of a wireless station on shore
start or stop the vessel, or steer it in any direction by his wireless
control. He has applied the same system to the control of torpedoes.
By this means a torpedo may be controlled after it has left the shore
and may be directed in any direction as long as it is within sight.
This invention may prove of incalculable benefit should America be
attacked by a foreign power.
What startling developments of wireless telegraphy lie still in the
future we do not know. Marconi has predicted that wireless messages
will circle the globe. "I believe," he has said, "that in the near
future a wireless message will be sent from New York completely around
the world without relaying, and will be received by an instrument
in the same office with the transmitter, in perhaps less time than
Shakespeare's forty minutes."
Not long ago the United States battle-ship _Wyoming_, lying off Cape
Henry on the Atlantic coast, communicated with the _San Diego_ at
Guaymas, on the Pacific coast of Mexico. This distance, twenty-five
hundred miles across land, shows that Marconi's prediction may be
realized in the not distant future.
XIX
SPEAKING ACROSS THE CONTINENT
A New "Hello Boy" in Boston--Why the Boy Sought the Job--The Useful
Things the Boy Found to Do--Young Carty and the Multiple
Switchboard--Called to New York City--He Quiets the Roaring
Wires--Carty Made Engineer-in-Chief--Extending the Range of the
Human Voice--New York Talks to San Francisco Over a Wire.
It seemed to many that the wireless telegraph was to be the final word
in the development of communication, but two striking achievements
coming in 1915 proved this to be far from the case. While one group of
scientists had given themselves to experimentation with the Hertzian
waves which led to wireless telegraphy, other scientists and engineers
were busily engaged in bringing the telephone to a perfection
which would enable it to accomplish even more striking feats. These
electrical pioneers did not work as individuals, but were grouped
together as the engineering staff of the American Telephone and
Telegraph Company. At their head was John J. Carty, and it was under
his guiding genius that the great work was accomplished. John Carty
is the American son of Irish parents. He was born in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, on April 14, 1861. His father was a gun-maker and an
expert mechanic of marked intelligence and ingenuity who numbered
among his friends Howe, the creator of the sewing-machine. As a boy
John Carty displayed the liveliest interest in things electrical. When
the time came for him to go to school, physics was his favorite study.
He showed himself to be possessed of a keen mind and an infinite
capacity for work. To these advantages was added a good elementary
education. He was graduated from Cambridge Latin School, where he
prepared for Harvard University. Before he could enter the university
his eyesight failed, and the doctor forbade continuance of study.
Many a boy would have been discouraged by this physical handicap which
denied him complete scholastic preparation. But this boy was not
the kind that gives up. He had been supplementing his school work
in physics with experimentations upon his own behalf. Let us let Mr.
Carty tell in his own words how he next occupied himself.
I had often visited the shop of Thomas Hall, at 19 Bromfield
Street, and looked in the window. I went in from time to time,
not to make large purchases, but mostly to make inquiries and
to buy some blue vitriol, wire, or something of the kind. It
was a store where apparatus was sold for experimentation in
schools, and on Saturdays a number of Harvard and Institute
of Technology professors could be found there. It was quite a
rendezvous for the scientific men in those days, just the
same as the Old Corner Bookstore at the corner of School and
Washington Streets was a place where the literary men used to
congregate. Don't think that I was an associate of these great
scientists, but I was very much attracted to the atmosphere of
that store. I wanted to get in and handle the apparatus.
Finally it occurred to me that I would like to get into the
business, somehow. But I did not have the courage to go in
and ask them for a job. One day I was going by and saw a sign
hanging out, "Boy Wanted." I was about nineteen, and really
thought I was something of a scientist, not exactly a boy. I
was a boy, however. I walked by on one side of the street and
then on the other, looking in, and finally the idea possessed
me to go in and strike for that job. So I took down the sign,
which was outside the window, put it under my arm, and went in
and persuaded Tom Hall that I was the boy he wanted.
He said, "When can you begin?" I said, "Now." There was no
talk of wages or duties. He said, "Take this package around
to Earle & Prew's express and hurry back, as I have another
errand for you to do." So I had to take a great, heavy box
around to the express-office and get a receipt for it. I
found, when Saturday night came around, that I had been
engaged at the rate of fifty cents a day. I would have been
glad to work for nothing.
Well, I did not get near that apparatus in a hurry, not until
the time came for fixing up the window. My first talk in
regard to it had no reference to services in a scientific
capacity on my part. I had rather hoped that the boss would
come around and consult with, me as to how to adjust the
apparatus. But that was not it. He said: "John, clean out that
window. Everything is full of dust, and be careful and don't
break anything!" So I cleaned it out. I swept out the place,
cleaned about there, did errands, mixed battery solutions, and
got a great deal of experience there in one way or another. I
did whatever there was to do and got a good deal of fun out
of it, while becoming acquainted with the state of the art of
that day. I got to know intimately all the different sorts of
philosophical apparatus there were, and how to mix the various
battery solutions. In fact, I became really quite experienced
for those times in such matters.
It was not long before young Carty lost his job. Being a regular boy,
he had been guilty of too much skylarking. This experience steadied
him, and he forthwith sought a new job. He had met some of the
employees of the telephone company and was naturally interested in
their work. At that time "hello boys" held sway in the crude telephone
exchanges, the "hello girl" having not yet appeared. So John Carty at
the age of nineteen went to work in the Boston telephone exchange.
The switchboard at which they placed him had been good enough for
the other boys who had been called upon to operate it, and indeed
it represented the best thought and effort of the leaders in the
telephone world. But it did not satisfy Carty, who, not content
with simply-operating the board, studied its construction and began
planning improvements. As Mr. Carty himself puts it:
The little switchboards of that day were a good deal like the
automobiles of some years ago--one was likely to spend more
time under the switchboard than, sitting at it! In that way I
learned a great deal about the arrangement and construction
of switchboards. Encountering the trouble first, I had an
advantage over others in being able to suggest a remedy. So I
have always thought it was a good thing to have troubles, as
long as they are not too serious or too numerous. Troubles are
certainly a great advantage, if we manage them correctly.
Certainly Carty made these switchboard troubles the first
stepping-stone in his climb to the top in the field of telephone
engineering. The improvements which the youngster suggested were so
valuable that they were soon being made under his direction, and
ere long he installed in the Boston exchange the first multiple
switchboard, the fundamental features of which are in the switchboards
of to-day. In his work with the switchboards young Carty early got
in touch with Charles E. Scribner, another youngster who was doing
notable work in this field. The young men became fast friends and
worked much together. Scribner devoted himself almost exclusively
to switchboards and came to be known as the father of the modern
switchboard.
Boston had her peculiar problems and an "express" service was needed.
How to handle this in the exchange was another problem, and this, too,
Carty solved. For this purpose he designed and installed the first
metallic circuit, multiple switchboard to go into service. The
problems of the exchange were among the most serious of the many which
troubled the early telephone companies. Of course every telephone-user
desired to be able to converse with any other who had a telephone in
his office or residence. The development of the switchboards had been
comparatively slow in the past, and the service rendered by the boys
proved far from satisfactory. The average boy proved himself
too little amenable to discipline, too inclined to "sass" the
telephone-users, and too careless. But the early use of "hello boys"
was at least a success for the telephone in that it brought to
its service John J. Carty. This boy pointed the way to the great
improvements that made it possible to handle the constantly growing
volume of calls expeditiously and effectively.
The early telephones were operated with a single wire grounded at
either end, the earth return being used to complete the circuit
as with the telegraph. But while the currents used to operate the
telegraph are fairly strong and so can dominate the earth currents,
the tiny currents which represented the vibrations of the human voice
were all too often drowned by the earth currents which strayed on to
the lines. Telephone engineers were not then agreed that this caused
the difficulty; but they did know there was difficulty. Many weird
noises played over the lines and as often as not the spoken word was
twisted into the strangest gibberish and rendered unintelligible. If
the telephone was to satisfy its patrons and prove of real service
to the world, the difficulty had to be overcome. Some of the more
progressive engineers insisted that a double-wire system without a
ground was necessary. This, of course, involved tremendous expenses
in rebuilding every line and duplicating every wire. The more
conservative hesitated, but Carty forged ahead.
In 1880 he was engaged in operating a new line out of Boston. He was
convinced that the double-wire system alone could be successful, and
he arranged to operate a line on this plan. Taking two single lines,
he instructed the operator at the other end to join them, forming a
two-wire circuit. The results justified him. At last a line had been
attained which could be depended upon to carry the conversation.
No sooner was one problem solved than another presented itself. What
to do with the constantly increasing number of wires was a pressing
difficulty. All telephone circuits had been strung overhead, and with
the demand for telephones for office and residence rapidly increasing,
the streets of the great cities were becoming a perfect forest of
telephone poles, with the sky obscured by a maze of wires. Poles were
constantly increased in height until a line was strung along Wall
Street in New York City at a height of ninety feet. From the poles the
wires overflowed to the housetops, increasing the difficulty of the
engineers. How to protect the wires so that they could be placed
underground was the problem.