Radio Shack

It was that old practice sentence of typists, which is as old as are
typewriting machines, and Joe Harned, seated before the told-style,
noisy, but still capable machine in Philip Burtons telegraph office,
had rattled it off twenty-five times and was on his twenty-sixth Wlbq 1570 Khz Morgantown when
suddenly, very suddenly, his mind began to work.
Or rather it might be said that an idea, the _big idea_, danced
unceremoniously into his brain, and, beginning to take definite and
concrete form, chased a score of other smaller ideas through all the
thought-channels of his handsome, boyish, well-rounded head.
He came to a full stop and gazed steadily at the upturned paper in the
typewriter in front of him. Twenty-fives times he had written that
sentence, and twenty-five times with mechanical precision and true
adherence to time-honored custom he had finished it by tapping off the
word “party.”
It was a formula of words which some genius had devised for the
fingering practice it gave one on the keyboard, and Joe Harned had
written it hundreds of times before, just as thousands of others had
done, without giving a thought to its meaning, or the significance that
the substitution of a single word would give it.
He read it again, and as if it were the result of an uncontrollable
impulse, his fingers began the rapid tap-tap-tap. And this time he
substituted the new word that the _big idea_ had suddenly thrust into
his mind.
Joe gave the roller a twirl, the paper rolled out, dropped to the floor,
and he grasped for it eagerly.
Even Joe was surprised. He hadnt realized that in his enthusiastic
haste he had pushed down the key marked “caps.”
In bold, outstanding letters near the bottom of the sheet was an
historic sentence, and Joe Harned–Harned, of Brighton Academy–had
devised it.
“NOW IS THE TIME FOR ALL GOOD MEN TO COME TO THE AID OF THEIR COUNTRY!”
Joe gazed at it again for a moment, and then let his eyes travel across
the little office to where red-headed, freckle-faced, big-hearted and
impetuous Jerry Macklin was rapping away at another typewriter, and, two
feet away from Jerry, “Slim” Goodwin, “one-hundred-and-seventy pounds in
his stockinged feet, and five-feet-four in his gym suit,” was working
the telegraph key with a pudgy hand.
“Jerry!” he called. “Oh, Slim! Come over here a moment, both of you. I
want to show you something.”
Jerry immediately ceased typewriting, but Slim was reluctant to release
the telegraph key. However, as Joe began folding the paper in such a way
that only the last sentence showed, their aroused curiosity brought both
of them to his side.
“Read that,” said Joe, trying to suppress the quiver in his voice, and
holding the paper up before them. “Read it carefully.”

He dived; but not before the other man saw him. Joe, swimming ten feet
under water, and as hard as he could with the current down stream, knew
that he had been discovered, for he heard the quick rap-rap of the oars,
the sound dying away as the little craft sped toward shore.
When he did come to the surface it was with the certain feeling that the
fatal searchlight had been played upon the scene two minutes too early,
and just in time to prevent the capture red-handed of a very
questionable character, undoubtedly carrying out some plot for an enemy
government.
For as distinctly as he could hear the oars thrashing the water toward
shore, he could discern the steady but subdued puffing of a steam launch
racing up the river.
Joe was now on the point of exhaustion. He was flapping the water
desperately, but he was making no progress, and he was having the
greatest difficulty keeping himself afloat. He tried to cry out, and
this final effort took his last bit of strength.
The steam launch was then perhaps thirty feet away, but Jerrys words,
“Right about here,” floated to him as from the opposite side of the
river. The boats searchlight that was then suddenly thrown on blinded
him; he lost all account of things, and had the vague feeling of
sailing across great spaces on fleecy white clouds.
When he regained partial consciousness Sergeant Martin was in the water
with him, and trying to raise his body over the side of the launch; then
he relapsed again, for what seemed to him hours, but what was actually
only about two minutes, and was awakened to his real senses by the
shouts of Slim, on shore.
“Slims got him,” Jerry almost shouted. “Hurry, captain, right off this
way to the shore. Slim must have him. Listen to Slims bellow.”
And if there wasnt a first-class ruction in progress just upon the spot
from which Slims vocal signals were emanating, then Slims voice was
deceptive, indeed.
As a matter of fact, there was the finest sort of a fracas afoot.
Slim, on shore, had been a silent and anxious witness to the sudden
turning on of the navy yard searchlight, and to all that it exposed–the
boat, the man at work in it, Joe in the water, and his discovery by the
boats occupant.
And then, as the light was extinguished, and the whole affair was
engulfed in darkness, Slim heard the rapid beating of the oars upon the
water, and the rower heading toward shore–and Slim.
Unable to see the craft approaching, he traced its course by sound, and
when the man stepped ashore Slim was only a few yards away. Discerning a
shadow just ahead of him, the youth threw himself at it with his whole
weight, only Wxxb 102 Mhz Delphi to grunt his pain and disgust as he came into violent
contact with the trunk of a dead tree.
The sound, however, startled the enemy into an exclamation which
revealed his whereabouts, and a moment later the two were locked
together and rolling over the ground, Slim with a desperate grip upon
the strangers throat, and the latter landing blow after blow upon
Slims stomach.
It was during this mêlée that Slim spied the searchlight of the launch
and let out his first call. After that most of his “bellows” were
involuntary and but punctuated the rapid-fire attack with which the
other man was landing his blows just above Slims waist-line, or where
his waist-line should have been.
As the launch headed toward shore, its searchlight trained over the bow,
the man of the rowboat resorted to more desperate tactics. With a
tremendous jerk he managed to free his throat from Slims grasp. An
instant later he gave the youths neck a twist which almost broke it.
Then he landed a vicious kick which put poor Slim out of business.
Just as the marines from the launch were climbing ashore the fellow sped
off into the denseness of the night; and as his footsteps died away all
present trace of him was gone. A dozen of them searched for an hour, but
without result, and further investigation along that line had to be
abandoned until the following day.

But their trip now was far different from the one they had had across
England. Where, in that country, they had seen big concentration camps,
and men preparing for war, with an occasional evidence of wars effects
in a building wrecked by a night air raid, here, in the eastern part of
France, they came upon actual war in all its fateful progress, with
whole towns demolished, forests and orchards blotted out–stark ruin
written over the face of the earth.
With a clear right-of-way, their high-power machine swept past
ammunition and food trains–long strings of powerful motor trucks
driving toward the scene of action. They came upon towns and villages in
that area known as “behind the lines,” where French, American, Belgian
and British soldiers were recuperating after hard days and nights in the
front-line trenches.
By this time they were well within sound of the heavy guns, and their
driver told them that the artillery duel then going on had been in
progress for forty-eight hours at least.
“Sometimes it lasts for a week or more, you know,” he said, “in
preparation for a great infantry advance. But I understand that this
time they expect to go forward before the end of to-day.”
“Which, means,” added Lieutenant Mackinson, “that we probably will get a
chance to get right into the thick of it.”
On and on they went, and nearer and nearer to the scene of actual battle
they came. Kgb-fm 101 Mhz San Diego They passed the third-line trenches, and now, in places, they
seemed to be in a straight line with some of the concealed artillery
that was pounding away at the enemy in terrible detonations that shook
and rocked the ground every minute.
At the second-line trenches their orders called for a halt. They did not
have to be told that there was “something doing.” The road, so far as
the eye could reach backward over the route they had traveled, was a
constantly moving line of motor trucks, coming forward with men and
shells, while out ahead of them, tremendous and menacing, big tanks–the
biggest things the boys ever had seen propelled on wheels or
tractors–were pursuing their uneven course toward the front, in
preparation for a new kind of assault.
“They look like miniature battleships on land, dont they?” exclaimed
Slim.
The others agreed that it was about the best description that could be
given of these massive fighting machines, equipped with guns and men,
that could travel with their own power practically anywhere, across
shell holes, over trenches, through barbed wire–the most human piece of
war mechanism that had yet made its appearance on the battlefield.
Summons to a long-delayed meal gave a welcome interruption to their
guesses as to just what their first duties would be, and they had
scarcely finished their substantial rations of food when an orderly
informed Lieutenant Mackinson that he was to report at once to the field
headquarters.
“Await me here,” he said to the five men under his immediate command. “I
probably will be only a short time.”
And, indeed, it seemed to them that he had hardly time to reach the
headquarters when he was seen returning hurriedly. He gave some hasty
instructions to the chauffeur, and the latter immediately began a quick
examination of his engine and tires, which promised another early move.
“We go forward as far as we can by automobile again,” the lieutenant
informed them, “and after dark to-night we are to establish an outlying
communication from the farthest skirmish points to headquarters.”
Almost as he finished the sentence, they were started, but now their
progress frequently was impeded, and occasionally a shell broke so close
to them as to jar the machine from its course.
None of the men in the rear seats of that car were cowards, but, aside
from Hoskins, it was their first experience under actual fire, and they
marveled at the coolness of the driver, who seemed not to mind at all
the dangerous quarters they were in.
When they climbed out of the machine, half an hour later, Joe remarked
upon it in tones of open admiration.
“Its nothing,” the youthful chauffeur replied. “Youll get used to it,
too.”
As he turned the automobile and started backward, Slim suddenly
remembered that they hadnt even heard his name.
“Dont know it,” said Hoskins, “but he was wounded twice in the
trenches, I heard while we were waiting for the lieutenant. Thats why
hes driving a car now. He has seen enough service to know that
nervousness doesnt help.”

A 25 to 50 Mile Wireless Telephone Transmitter–With Direct Current
Motor Generator.–Where you have to start with 110 or 220 Southwest Colorado Tv Translator Association K24ch volt direct
current and you want to transmit to a distance of 25 miles or more you
will have to install a _motor-generator_. To make this transmitter you
will need exactly the same apparatus as that described and pictured
for the _100 Mile C. W. Telegraph Transmitting Set_ in Chapter XVI,
except that you must substitute a _microphone transmitter_ and a
_telephone induction coil_, or a _microphone transformer_, or still
better, a _magnetic modulator_, for the telegraph key and chopper.
The Apparatus You Need.–To reiterate; the pieces of apparatus you
need are: (1) one _aerial ammeter_ as shown at E in Fig. 75; (2) one
_tuning coil_ as shown at A in Fig. 77; (3) one _aerial condenser_ as
shown at B in Fig. 77; (4) one _grid leak_ as shown at C in Fig. 77;
(5) one _grid, blocking_ and _protective condenser_; (6) one _5 watt
oscillator tube_ as shown at E in Fig. 77; (7) one _rheostat_ as shown
at I in Fig. 75; (8) one _10 volt (5 cell) storage battery_; (9) one
_choke coil_; (10) one _panel cut-out_ as shown at K in Fig. 75, and
(11) a _motor-generator_ having an input of 110 or 220 volts and an
output of 350 volts.
In addition to the above apparatus you will need: (12) a _microphone
transmitter_ as shown in Fig. 84; (13) a battery of four dry cells or
a 6 volt storage battery, and either (14) a _telephone induction coil_
as shown in Fig. 86; (15) a _microphone transformer_ as shown in Fig.
87; or a _magnetic modulator_ as shown in Fig. 88. All of these parts
have been described, as said above, in Chapter XVI, except the
microphone modulators.
[Illustration: Fig. 86.–Telephone Induction Coil. (Used with
Microphone Transmitter.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 87.–Microphone Transformer. (Used with Microphone
Transmitter.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 88.–Magnetic Modulator. (Used with Microphone
Transmitter.)]
The Telephone Induction Coil.–This is a little induction coil that
transforms the 6-volt battery current after it has flowed through and
been modulated by the microphone transmitter into alternating currents
that have a potential of 1,000 volts of more. It consists of a primary
coil of _No. 20 B. and S._ gauge cotton covered magnet wire wound on a
core of soft iron wires while around the primary coil is wound a
secondary coil of _No. 30_ magnet wire. Get a _standard telephone
induction coil_ that has a resistance of 500 or 750 ohms and this will
cost you a couple of dollars.
The Microphone Transformer.–This device is built on exactly the same
principle as the telephone induction coil just described but it is
more effective because it is designed especially for modulating the
oscillations set up by vacuum tube transmitters. As with the telephone
induction coil, the microphone transmitter is connected in series with
the primary coil and a 6 volt dry or storage battery.