"A four-turn coil on a ceramic form, in series with a twenty
micromicrofarad tuning condenser. I've been using a circular plate as a
collector."
"Does it tune?"
"Nope. Funny thing, though, it won't work without a condenser in the
circuit. I can use anything at all there without tuning it. But, darn
it, the coil is the only one that works."
"That's slightly ridiculous. Have you reconstructed all factors?"
"Inductance, distributed capacity, and factor 'Q' are all right on the
button with two more I made. Nothing dioding."
"Hm-m-m. This takes the cake. Nothing works, you say?"
"Nothing in my mind. I've tried about three hundred similar coils, and
not a wiggle since. That's the only one."
Chuck Thomas said: "Wes, have you tried your tube-amplifier system
ahead of it?"
"Yes, and nothing at all happens then. I don't understand that one,
because we know that any kind of input power will be re-beamed as
similar power. I should think that the thing will amplify the same kind
of stuff. I've used a solar beam miniature with a driver-alloy dynode
in it, but that doesn't work either."
"Shucks," said Thomas.
Don stood up and picked up the coil. "Fellows, I'm going to make a
grand, old college try."
"Yes?" asked Walt.
"I've got a grand idea, here. One, I'm still remembering that business
of making the receptor dynode of the same alloy as the transmitter
cathode. I've a hunch that this thing is not so much an inductor, but
something sour in the way of alloy-selectivity. If I'm right, I may cut
this in half, and make two detectors, each of similar characteristics.
Shall I?"
"Go ahead. We've established the fact that it is not the
physico-electrical characteristics of that coil," said Wes. "I, too,
took my chances and rewound that same wire on a couple of other forms.
So it doesn't count as far as inductance goes. So we can't ruin
anything but the total make-up of the wire. I think we may be able to
re-establish the wire by self-welding if your idea doesn't work. Now,
unless we want to search the three planets for another hunk of wire to
work like this one did, without knowing what to look for and therefore
trying every foot of wire on three planets--"
"I'll cut it," said Channing with a smile. His cutters snipped, and
then fastened one end of the wire to the coil, stripping the other
portion off and handing it to Chuck Thomas, who rewound it on another
form.
"Now," said Don, "crank up your outfit and we'll try this hunk."
The beam tubes were fired up, and the smell of ozone began to make
itself prominent. Channing cranked up the air-vent capacity to remove
the ozone more swiftly. The men applied themselves to the detector
circuits, and Wes, who recognized the results, said: "This hunk works.
About as good as the whole coil."
Channing replaced the first coil with the second. Wes inspected the
results and said: "Not quite as good, but it does work."