BROADCASTING MARVELS
The remainder of the week sped quickly by, and almost before the boys
realized it the holiday had arrived. Larry spent the morning at Bob's
house, where he watched Bob and Joe working on the new set, and kept his
promise to ask questions.
"It doesn't do me much good, though," he said, fairly puzzled at last.
"That's about the most mysterious looking box of tricks that I've ever had
the hard luck to look at. What are all those dials and knobs for? Do you
keep your money in there, or what?"
"You must think they are combination locks," laughed Bob. "This knob here
controls a condenser, and this one a transformer."
"But how do you know what to do with them?" asked the bewildered Larry.
"How do you know which one to turn and which one to leave alone?"
"You don't," laughed Bob. "You may have an idea about where they should be
placed, but it's different every evening."
"Yes, and during the evening, too," added Joe. "You have to keep adjusting
all the time to get the best results."
"Well, if it depended on me, I'm afraid I'd only get the worst results,"
said Larry. "It all looks terribly complicated to me."
"You don't have to worry much about it, anyway," said Joe. "All you have
to do is whistle into the transmitter, and it's up to us to hear you. We
have to do all the work."
"It's a lucky thing for me that it is that way," said Larry. "If I had to
learn all about radio before I could give my act, I'd probably starve to
death first."
"Radio is just like everything else," said Bob. "It looks very mysterious
and difficult to an outsider, but when you get into it a little way and
understand the rudiments, it begins to look a lot simpler. It wouldn't
take you very long to catch on to it. Especially a smart lad like you," he
added, with a grin.
"Cut out the comedy," said Larry. "Any time I get a compliment from you or
Joe, I know there's a nigger in the woodpile somewhere."
"The trouble with you is, you're too modest," said Joe. "When we do say
something good about you, you think we're only kidding."
"I don't think--I know," replied Larry, grinning. "I suppose, though, that
radio must be pretty easy, or you fellows wouldn't know so much about
it."
"That remark has all the appearance of a dirty dig," said Bob. "But I
suppose we can't land on him until he gets entirely well, can we, Joe?"
"No, let him live a little while longer," replied his friend. "We'll get
even for that knock, though, Larry, my boy."
"I won't lie awake at night worrying about it, anyway," replied Larry.
"But I'm not going to interfere with your work any more. Just go ahead as
though I weren't here, and I'll try to learn something by watching what
you do."
Bob and Joe worked steadily then until Mrs. Layton called to them to come
up to lunch.
"Toot! toot!" went Larry, imitating faithfully a factory whistle blowing
for twelve o'clock. "Time to knock off, you laborers. If you work any
longer I won't let you belong to the union any more."
"No danger of that," said Bob. "I've been feeling hungry ever since ten
o'clock, so I'm not going to lose any time now. Come on up and we'll see
what mother's got for us."
They found a lunch waiting for them that would have made a dyspeptic
hungry, and they attacked it in a workmanlike manner that drew an
approving comment from Mrs. Layton.
"I declare it's some satisfaction to get a meal for you boys," she
declared. "You certainly eat as though you enjoyed it."
"There's no camouflage about that, Mother; we _do_ enjoy it," answered
Bob.
"We wouldn't be human if we didn't enjoy it, that's fairly certain," said
Larry. "The meals at the hotel are pretty good, but they're not in the
same class with this lunch at all."
"I know they have a reputation for setting a good table there," said Mrs.
Layton. "I hope you fare as well in the city. You'll board there, I
suppose, won't you?"
"Yes, I expect to," said Larry. "Mr. Allard, the manager, recommended me
to a good place near the station, and I guess they won't let me starve to
death there."
"Let us hope not," smiled Mrs. Layton. "Any time you are in Clintonia,
we'd be very glad to have you visit us, you know. I suppose Bob has told
you that, though."
"I certainly did!" exclaimed her son. "I have a hunch that after eating a
while in boarding houses a good home-cooked meal must be a welcome
change."
"I'll say it is," assented Larry. "But there are one or two good
restaurants fairly near the station, anyway, so in case I get tired of the
food at the boarding house, I can switch to a restaurant for a while."
"That sounds like jumping from the frying pan into the fire," grinned
Joe.
"I suppose it is something along that line," assented Larry, with a rueful
laugh. "But what is a poor fellow to do?"
"I suppose it can't be helped," assented Bob, as he finished his dessert.
"But now, fellows, there doesn't seem to be anything more to eat, so I
guess we'd better be moving if we're going to catch the two o'clock
train."
"That shows you how much gratitude I can expect from him," said Mrs.
Layton, laughingly appealing to the others. "'Eat and run' seems to be his
motto these days."
"Well, there's always so much to be done, it would keep anybody on the
jump," protested Bob. "I don't seem to be fading away under the strain,
though, do I?"
"No. And while your appetite continues the way it is, I guess I shan't
need to worry about you," replied Mrs. Layton.
Larry and Joe said good-by to their hostess, and then all three boys
started for the station. They had good fortune in catching the trolley
that ran to the railroad station, and just had time to get their tickets
before the train pulled in.
It was more than a two-hours' run to the point where they must change
cars, but it seemed to them that they had hardly gotten settled in their
seats before it was time to get off. Larry told them many comical stories
of his experiences while traveling from town to town and funny incidents
that had occurred at rehearsals and during performances.
"You get pretty tired of traveling all the time, though," Larry remarked
at length. "This engagement you fellows and Mr. Brandon have gotten for me
is certainly a relief. I'd be mighty glad to have it, even if I hadn't
been hurt. I've had enough of jumping around all over the country to suit
me for a while."
"I'll bet it does get mighty tiresome," assented Bob, as the boys rose to
get out. "But here we are, and as the train doesn't go any further, I
suppose we might as well get off."
"That isn't a bad idea," said Joe. "I suppose there's no use trying to
persuade the conductor to go on a little further."
"I don't imagine you'd better even think of it," said Larry. "I've got a
hunch that he'd only get peeved if you did."
"Well, then, I'll take your advice," grinned Joe.
As they emerged from the terminal into the street at their final
destination, Joe asked:
"But how are we going to find this place, Larry? Do you know the way?"
"No, but I know how to find somebody who does," replied Larry, and he
signaled to a taxicab driver.
"Nix, Larry, nix!" expostulated Bob. "We can get there on the trolleys.
You'd better save your cash."
"You fellows blew me to a taxi ride when I landed in Clintonia the last
time, so I'm going to do the same for you," said Larry, obstinately. "No
use in kicking now, so just forget it."
During this brief dialogue the taxi had approached them, and now stopped
as the driver swung open the door.
"Hop in, fellows," directed Larry, and then he gave the driver directions
to drive to the big broadcasting station.
With a jerk and a rattle they were off, and there ensued an exciting ten
minutes as the taxicab scooted through the traffic, shooting across
streets, and missing collisions by the narrowest of margins a dozen times
in the course of the brief journey. The boys held on tight to prevent
being thrown from their seats, and they all heaved sighs of relief when at
length the vehicle came to a sudden halt in front of the big broadcasting
station.
"Whew!" exclaimed Bob. "I don't know what this will cost you, Larry, but
whatever it is, you get your money's worth of excitement, anyway. Taking
a ride in one of those things is like going out to commit suicide."
"That's nothin'," grinned the driver, who had overheard this remark. "We
was takin' it easy all de way. If you guys had been in a hurry, now, I
might have shown you a little speed."
"Well, you did pretty well, as it was," said Bob. "You were in a hurry, if
we weren't."
Larry paid the man, and he was off at top speed and had disappeared around
a corner before Larry had fairly put his change away.
"That must be a great life, driving a taxi all day in a big city," said
Larry. "But let's go in, and see if we can find the boss. I hope he'll act
tip nice and show you fellows the whole works. I'll go around with you and
try to look wise, but I won't have any idea of what it's all about."
Entering the office, they had little difficulty in seeing the manager, and
he readily consented to have the boys look over the station, turning them
over to an assistant, as he was too busy to take them around himself.
Mr. Reed, the assistant, did not appear particularly pleased with his
assignment at first, but when he found that the boys were well grounded in
radio, his attitude changed.
"I get tired of showing people around who don't know a thing about radio,
and do nothing but ask fool questions," he explained. "But when I get
some one who knows the subject and can understand what I'm showing him,
that's a different matter."
He showed them over the sending station from the studio to the roof. The
boys listened with the keenest interest as he described to them the
methods by which the broadcasting was carried on, which every night
delighted hundreds of thousands of people within range of the station.
In a little room close to the roof they saw the sending apparatus which
really did the work. There was a series of five vacuum bulbs through which
the current passed, receiving a vastly greater amplification from each,
until from the final one it climbed into the antenna and was flung into
space. To the casual onlooker they would have seemed like simply so many
ordinary electric bulbs arranged in a row and glowing with, perhaps,
unusual brilliance.
But the boys knew that they were vastly more than this. Where the electric
light tube would have contained only the filament, these tubes at which
they were looking contained also a plate and a grid--the latter being that
magical invention which had worked a complete revolution in the science of
radio and had made broadcasting possible. From the heated filament
electrons were shot off in a stream toward the plate, and by the
wonder-working intervention of the grid were amplified immeasurably in
power and then passed on to the other tube, which in turn passed it on to
a third, and so on until the sound that had started as the ordinary tone
of a human voice had been magnified many thousands of times. This little
series of tubes was able to make the crawl of a fly sound like the tread
of an elephant and there is no doubt that a time will come when through
this agency the drop of a pin in New York City can be heard in San
Francisco.
The boys were so fascinated with the possibilities contained in the
apparatus that it was only with reluctance that they left the roof and
went to the studio. This they found to be a long, rather narrow room,
wholly without windows, and with the floors covered with the heaviest of
rugs. The reason for this, as their guide explained, was to shut out all
possible sound except that which it was desired to transmit over the
radio.
"What is the idea of having no windows?" asked Bob.
"So there shall be no vibration from the window panes," replied Mr. Reed.
"I tell you, boys, this broadcasting hasn't been a matter of days, but is
the development of months of the hardest kind of work and experiment. We
have had to test, reject, and sift all possible suggestions in order to
reach perfection. I don't mean by that to say that we have reached it yet,
but we're on the way. New problems are coming up all the time, and we are
kept busy trying to solve them.
"It seems a simple thing," he went on, "to talk or sing into that
microphone," pointing to a little disk-like instrument about the height of
a man's head. "But even there the least miscalculation may wholly spoil
the effect of the speech or the music. Now, in a theater, the actor is at
least twenty feet or so from the nearest of his audience and the sounds
that he makes in drawing in his breath are not perceptible. If he stayed
too close to the microphone, however, that drawing in of breath, or some
other little peculiarity of his delivery, would be so plainly heard that
it would interfere with the effect of his performance. So, with certain
instruments. A flute, for instance, has no mechanical stops, so a flute
player can stand comparatively near the microphone. The player of a
cornet, however, must stand some distance back or else the clicking of the
stops of his instrument will interfere with his music. These are only a
few of the difficulties that we meet and have to guard against. There are
dozens of others that require just as much vigilance to guard against in
order to get a perfect performance. It's a pleasure to explain these
things to you, boys, for you catch on quickly."
"We're a long way from being experts," said Bob, "but we've done quite a
good deal of radio work and built several sets of our own, so we can at
least ask intelligent questions."
"Well, fire away, and I'll try to answer them," replied Mr. Reed. "You may
be able to stick me, though."
He said this as a joke, but before they had completed a tour of the
building the boys had asked him some posers that he was at a loss to
answer.
"I almost think you fellows should be taking me around," he said at last.
"Blamed if I don't think you know as much as I do about it."