Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/174

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150
Jack Heaton

in at the distant station. The high frequency currents set up by the spark-gap then surge through an oscillation transformer which increases its pressure and finally into and through the aerial wire system where they are damped out in long electric waves.

The Morse telegraph key is placed in the receiving room and it works a control switch in the sending room. The control switch breaks up the current that flows from the generator into the transformer into dots and dashes.

The receiving instruments have both electrolytic and crystal detectors, the other parts being made up of the usual variable condensers, tuning coils and oscillation transformer and head-phones.

Well, at last everything was all ready for the final company test and I was mighty glad of it for things were getting very much on my nerves. A cableless station is altogether too big and cold-blooded a proposition for a fellow who likes a little excitement once in a while.

The Navy Department had fitted out the cruiser Salem with a sending and a receiving apparatus exactly like that of the Arlington station except it was very much smaller.