Produced by Stan Goodman, Earle Beach, Tonya Allen and the
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[Illustration: "THERE IT IS!" CRIED JOE, AS THE MUSIC SUDDENLY
BURST UPON THEIR EARS]
THE RADIO BOYS' FIRST WIRELESS
OR WINNING THE FERBERTON PRIZE
BY ALLEN CHAPMAN
FOREWORD
BY JACK BINNS
It is very appropriate at this moment when radio has taken the
country by storm, and aroused an enthusiasm never before equaled,
that the possibilities for boys in this art should be brought out
in the interesting and readable manner shown in the first book of
this series.
Radio is still a young science, and some of the most remarkable
advances in it have been contributed by amateurs--that is, by boy
experimenters. It is never too late to start in the fascinating game,
and the reward for the successful experimenter is rich both in honor
and recompense.
Just take the case of E. H. Armstrong, one of the most famous of
all the amateurs in this country. He started in as a boy at home,
in Yonkers, experimenting with home-made apparatus, and discovered
the circuit that has revolutionized radio transmission and reception.
His circuit has made it possible to broadcast music, and speech, and
it has brought him world-wide fame.
He had no elaborate laboratory in which to experiment, but he
persevered and won out. Like the Radio Boys in this story, he was
confronted with all kinds of odds, but with true American spirit
he stuck to his task and triumphed.
The attitude of the government toward the wireless amateur is well
illustrated by the expressions of Secretary of Commerce Herbert
Hoover, and is summed up in his declaration, "I am for the American
boy."
No other country in the world offers such opportunities to boy
experimenters in the radio field. The government realizes that there
is always a possibility of other important discoveries being made
by the boy experimenters, and that is the reason it encourages the
amateur.
Don't be discouraged because Edison came before you. There is still
plenty of opportunity for you to become a new Edison, and no science
offers the possibilities in this respect as does radio communication.
Jack Binns
March 30th 1922
CONTENTS
I. THE AUTO CRASH
II. TAKING CHANCES
III. WONDERS OF WIRELESS
IV. MYSTERIOUS FORCES
V. CROOKED WORK
VI. A PRACTICAL OBJECT LESSON
VII. IN THE DARK
VIII. GETTING A START
IX. WORK AND FUN
X. A STEALTHY RASCAL
XI. CLEVER THINKING
XII. FORGING AHEAD
XIII. THRASHING A BULLY
XIV. ON THE VERGE
XV. THE FINISHING TOUCH
XVI. SWEETS OF VICTORY
XVII. THE FERBERTON PRIZE
XVIII. FRIENDLY RIVALS
XIX. A SPLENDID INSPIRATION
XX. THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES
XXI. THE VOICE THAT STUTTERED
XXII. THE STOLEN SET
XXIII. BATTERING IN THE DOOR
XXIV. ON THE TRAIL
XXV. THE PRIZE
THE RADIO BOYS' FIRST WIRELESS
CHAPTER I
THE AUTO CRASH
"How about it, Joe?" asked Bob Layton of his chum, Joe Atwood, as
they came out of school one afternoon, swinging their books by straps
over their shoulders. "Going up to Dr. Dale's house to-night?"
"You bet I am," replied Joe enthusiastically. "I wouldn't miss it
for a farm. I'm keen to know more about this wireless business, and
I'm sure the doctor can tell us more about it than any one else."
"He sure does get a fellow interested," agreed Bob. "He isn't a
bit preachy about it, either. Just talks to you in words you can
understand. But all the time you know he's got a lot back of it and
could tell you ten times as much about it if you asked him. Makes you
feel safe when you listen to him. Not a bit of guesswork or anything
like that."
"What are you fellows chinning about?" asked Jimmy Plummer, one of
their schoolmates, who came up to them at that moment. "You seem all
worked up about something."
"It's about that talk Dr. Dale is going to give us to-night on the
wireless telephone," answered Bob, as he edged over a little to give
Jimmy room to walk beside them. "You're going, aren't you? The doctor
said he wanted all the boys to come who could."
"Do you suppose there'll be any eats?" asked Jimmy, who was round
and fat, and who went by the nickname of "Doughnuts" among his mates
because of his fondness for that special delicacy.
"Always thinking of that precious stomach of yours!" laughed Bob.
"Jimmy, I'm ashamed of you. You're getting so fat now that pretty
soon you won't have to walk to school. You can just roll there like
a barrel."
"You string beans are only jealous because I get more fun out of
eating than you do," declared Jimmy, with a grin. "But eats or no
eats, I'm going to hear what the doctor has to say. I got a letter
the other day from a cousin of mine out in Michigan, and he told me
all about a set that he'd made and put up himself. Said he was just
crazy about it. Wanted me to go into it so that he and I might talk
together. Of course, though, I guess he was just kidding me about
that. Michigan's a long way off, and it takes more than a day to
get there on a train."
"Distance doesn't make much difference," declared Bob. "Already
they've talked across the Atlantic Ocean."
"Not amateurs?" objected Joe incredulously.
"Yes, even amateurs," affirmed Bob. "My dad was reading in the papers
the other night about a man in New Jersey who was talking to a friend
near by and told him that he was going to play a phonograph record
for him. A man over in Scotland, over three thousand miles away, heard
every word he said and heard the music of the phonograph too. A ship
two thousand miles out on the Atlantic heard the same record, and so
did another ship in a harbor in Central America. Of course, the paper
said, that was only a freak, and amateur sets couldn't do that once
in a million times. But it did it that time, all right. I tell you,
fellows, that wireless telephone is a wonder. Talk about the stories
of the Arabian Nights! They aren't in it."
There was a loud guffaw behind the lads, accompanied by snickers,
and the friends turned around to see three boys following them.
One of them, who was apparently the leader of the trio, was a big,
unwieldy boy of sixteen, a year older and considerably larger than
Bob and Joe. His eyes were close together, and he had a look of
coarseness and arrogance that denoted the bully. Buck Looker, as
he was called--his first name was Buckley--was generally unpopular
among the boys, but as he was the son of one of the richest men of
the town he usually had one or two cronies who hung about him for what
they could get. One of these, Carl Lutz, an unwholesome looking boy,
somewhat younger than Buck, was walking beside him, and on the side
nearer the curb was Terry Mooney, the youngest of the three, a boy
whose, furtive eyes carried in them a suggestion of treachery and
sneakiness.
"What's the joke, Buck?" asked Bob coldly, as he looked from one
to the other of the sniggering faces.
"You're the joke," answered Buck insolently; "that is, if you believe
all that stuff I heard you pulling off just now. You must be easy if
you fall for that."
"I wasn't talking to you," replied Bob, restraining himself with some
difficulty. "But since you've butted in, perhaps you'll tell me just
what it is that's so funny about the wireless telephone."
"The whole thing is bunk, if you ask me," replied Buck with the
confidence that so often goes with ignorance. "Telephoning without
wires! You might as well talk of walking without legs."
This argument seemed to him so overpowering that he swelled out his
chest and looked triumphantly at his two companions, whose faces
instantly took on the same expression.
"You made a ten strike that time, Buck," declared Lutz, clapping him
on the shoulder.
"Hit the target right in the bull's-eye," chimed in Terry, with
a smirk.
Bob and Joe and Jimmy looked at each other, and, despite their
resentment, had all they could do to keep from breaking into laughter.
Buck noticed their amused expression, and his coarse face grew red
and mottled.
"Well," he demanded, "what have you got to say to that? Am I right
or ain't I?"
"You're wrong," replied Joe promptly. "Dead wrong. You're so far
from the truth that you couldn't see it with a telescope. You're
talking like a ham sandwich."
"Look out what you're saying, Joe Atwood, or I'll make you sorry
for it," threatened Buck, as he clinched his fist, an ugly look
coming into his eyes.
"I apologize," said Joe. "That is, I apologize to the ham
sandwich."
Bob laid a restraining hand on his friend's arm.
"Easy, Joe," he counseled. "Listen, Buck," he went on. "Did you ever
hear of Marconi?"
"Sure, I did," replied Buck. "He's the fellow that had the fight
with Julius Caesar. The one that Cleopatra was dippy about."
"No," said Bob patiently. "You're thinking of Mark Antony. He's been
dead for more than eighteen hundred years. The man I mean is a very
live one. He's the inventor of wireless telegraphy."
"Never heard of him," muttered Buck sullenly.
"Well, since you never heard of him, we'll mention some one else,"
continued Bob. "I was only going to say that he's a pretty brainy
fellow, and he believes in the wireless telephone. Then there's
Edison. Perhaps you've heard of him?"
"Of course I have," blurted Buck furiously. "Say, what are you trying
to do? Make a fool of me?"
"Nature's done that already," Joe put in, but Bob checked him.
"I'm simply trying to show," Bob explained, "that if we're 'easy,'
as you call it, in 'falling for that stuff,' there are a lot of able
men in the United States who are in the same boat with us. In fact
there isn't a man of brains and education in the country who doesn't
believe in it."
"Do you mean to say that I haven't any brains?" cried Buck in a fury.
"Not exactly that," replied Bob. "But perhaps you don't use what
brains you have. That happens sometimes, you know."
"I guess a fellow's got a right to his own opinions," blustered Carl
Lutz, coming to the rescue of his discomfited leader.
"Of course he has," retorted Joe. "But when it's that kind of opinion
he ought to put on the soft pedal. Any one has a right to have a club
foot or a hunched back or cross eyes, but he doesn't usually go round
boasting of them."
"You're a wise bunch, I'll tell the world," sneered Buck in lieu of
a more stinging retort.
"Not at all," replied Joe. "It's you that claim to be wiser than
Edison and the rest of them. But you mustn't think because you have
water on the brain that you're the whole ocean."
The air was full of electricity and matters were tense between the two
groups when a diversion came in the form of a halloo from the other
side of the street, and Herb Fennington, a special friend of Bob
and Joe, came running over to greet them. They stopped for a moment,
and Buck and his cronies passed on, favoring Bob, Joe and Jimmy with
malignant scowls as they did so.
"Hello, Herb!" called Bob, as the latter came up to them, a little
breathless from running.
"Hello, fellows!" returned Herb, as he looked after Buck and his
companions. "What's up with Buck and his gang? Looked as if there
was going to be a fight about something."
"Not so bad as that, I guess," replied Bob, with a laugh, "though
Buck did look as though he'd like to take a swing at us."
"I only wish he had," grunted Joe. "That fellow certainly gets me mad,
and I wouldn't mind at all having some excuse for pitching into him."
"What was it all about?" asked Herb, with lively curiosity.
"He heard us talking about the wireless telephone and butted in,"
explained Bob. "Practically told us we were fools for believing
that there is such a thing."
Herb laughed outright.
"Sounds like Buck," he commented. "What he doesn't know would fill
a book."
"A whole library you mean," corrected Joe.
"A library then," agreed Herb, as the boys resumed their walk, which
had now brought them close to the business part of the town. "But say,
fellows, forget about Buck and listen to this. It's a good one that
I heard yesterday. Why is--"
He was interrupted by a shout from Bob.
"Look," he cried, "look at that auto! It's running wild!"
Their startled eyes followed the direction of Bob's pointing finger.
An automobile was describing curious antics in the middle of the
street. It made short dashes here and there, hesitated, zigzagged.
Then it turned suddenly toward the curb, dashed on the sidewalk
and amid a crash of broken glass plunged through the plate glass
windows of a store.