"Do you know, fellows," remarked Bob, as he was talking with his friends
a few days later, "I've been thinking----"
"Bob's been thinking!" cried Herb. "Fire the cannon, ring the bells,
hang out the flags. Bob's been thinking!"
"Are you sure it's that, or have you only been thinking that you've been
thinking?" grinned Joe.
"When did it attack you first?" asked Jimmy, with great solicitude. "And
where does it hurt you worst? Are you taking anything for it? You don't
want to let it go too long, Bob. I knew a fellow who had that same
trouble and didn't think it was worth while to send for a doctor, and
before he knew it----"
Bob made a dive at him that Jimmy adroitly ducked, losing nothing but
his hat in the process.
"Listen to me, you boneheads," Bob commanded, "and I'll try to get down
on the same level with your feeble intelligence. I've been thinking that
perhaps we can better our set still more in the matter of aerials."
"Alexander always looking for new worlds to conquer," murmured Joe. "We
nearly got killed the last time we bettered our aerial. What's the
matter with the umbrella type? I thought that was the _ne plus ultra_,
the _sine qua non_, the--the----"
"The _e pluribus unum_," Herb helped him out, "the _hoc propter quod_,
the _hic jacet_, the _requiescat in pace_, the----"
At this point his hat followed Jimmy's.
"The umbrella kind is good, all right," admitted Bob; "and, for that
matter, I'm not dead sure that it isn't the best. It certainly gave us
fine results in the baseball game on Saturday. But there's nothing so
good that there may not be something better, and I thought it might be
well to rig up a loop some day and try it out. If it works as well or
better than the umbrella, we may use it when we come to set up our radio
at Ocean Point."
"Is it a big job?" asked Herb, who as a rule was not on speaking terms
with anything that looked like work.
"No," answered Bob. "It's easy enough to make. We'll just get Jimmy here
to make a frame for it down in his father's carpenter shop----."
"Jimmy!" repeated that individual, in an aggrieved tone. "We'll just get
Jimmy to make the horn. Sure! We'll just get Jimmy to make a frame.
Sure! I suppose if one of us was marked out to die, you'd say, 'We'll
just let Jimmy do it.' Just as easy as that."
"Stop right there, Jimmy," commanded Joe. "You'll have me crying in a
minute, and it's an awful thing to see a strong man weep."
"After Jimmy has made the frame," continued Bob, not at all moved by the
pathos of the situation, "all we'll have to do will be to wind it about
eight times with copper wire. That will give us a lot of receiving area
and capacity. The frame ought to be about four feet square. It'll have
to be mounted on a pivot----"
"Let Jimmy make the pivot," murmured Jimmy.
"So that it can be swung end on in the direction of the broadcasting
station," continued Bob, not deigning to notice the interruption. "It
has to be pointed in that direction in order to get the message. If it
were at right angles, for instance, we probably would hear only very
little or perhaps nothing at all. You see, with that kind of aerial we
don't have to put up anything on the roof at all. We could have it
inside the room. It could be fastened to a hook in the ceiling, so that
when we weren't using it we could hoist it up and get it out of the way.
That kind is used a lot on ships and at ship stations on shore. They
call it sometimes a 'radio compass.' You can see it must be pretty good
or they wouldn't use it so widely."
"It is good," broke in a bass voice behind them, and as they turned in
surprise they were delighted to recognize in the owner of the voice Mr.
Frank Brandon, the radio inspector, by whose aid they had been able to
track down Dan Cassey, the rascal who had tried to defraud Nellie
Berwick, an orphan girl, of her money.
There was an exclamation of pleasure from all of the boys, with whom Mr.
Brandon was a great favorite.
"What good wind blew you down this way?" asked Bob, after the greetings
and hand-shakings were over.
"A little matter of business brought me down to a neighboring town, and
while I was so near I thought I would run over to Clintonia and call on
my old friend, Doctor Dale," replied Brandon. "He told me that you boys
won the Ferberton prizes," he continued, addressing Bob and Joe, "and I
congratulate you. I wasn't surprised, for I knew you'd been doing hard
and intelligent work on your sets. And I can see from the conversation I
overheard that you're just as much interested in it as ever."
"More than ever," affirmed Bob, and the others agreed. "We're just crazy
about it. We think it's just the greatest thing that ever happened."
"There are lots more who think the same thing," said Brandon, with a
smile. "And I guess they're about right. By the way, there's an
interesting thing about that radio compass you were speaking about that
isn't generally known. I was over on the other side when the thing
happened, and I got some inside dope on it."
"Tell us about it," urged Bob, and the others joined in.
"It was just before the battle of Jutland," replied Brandon, "which, as
of course you know, was the biggest naval battle fought during the World
War. The German fleet had been tied up in their own home waters for
nearly two years, and hadn't ventured out to try conclusions with the
British fleet that was patrolling the North Seas. In fact, it began to
be thought that they never would come out. But at last the German naval
leaders determined to risk a battle. They made their preparations with
the greatest secrecy, because, their vessels not being as numerous as
those of the British, their only chance of success lay in catching a
part of the British fleet unawares before the rest of the fleet could
come to their rescue.
"But the British naval authorities were on the alert. They had this
radio compass you were talking about developed to a high point of
efficiency and were able to listen in on the orders given by the German
commanders to their vessels. The Germans hadn't any idea that they could
be overheard and used their wireless signals freely. Now, you remember
that the battle took place on May thirty-first."
They did not remember at all, but they nodded their heads and tried to
look as wise as possible. Jimmy especially had such an owlish expression
that the others could hardly keep from laughing.
"On the night of May thirtieth," resumed Brandon, "the German flagship
wirelessed a lot of instructions that were heard at several places on
the British coast. These were compared and it was possible to ascertain
just where the flagship was stationed. The next morning the flagship
sent another lot of orders, that were also heard by the British. It was
then found that the flagship had moved seven miles down the river from
the station where she had been the night before. That showed that the
fleet was on the move. Instantly the British fleet was sent out to meet
them. So when the Germans came out to surprise the British, they found
that it was the other way around and it was they themselves that were
surprised. Well, you know the result. The German ships had to retreat to
their harbor, and they never came out again except to surrender after
the war was over. That was one way that radio helped to win the war."
"Just as it helped our aviators," put in Joe.
"Precisely," assented Mr. Brandon. "The Germans are usually pretty well
up in science, but we put it all over them in the matter of wireless
while the war was on."