The Radio Boys at Mountain Pass: or, The Midnight Call for Assistance

The boys wanted to get back to their radio set after dinner, but the snow looked so inviting that they could not resist the temptation to have a snow fight. Some of the men, seeing them hard at it, cast dignity to the winds and joined them, until quite a miniature battle was raging. Ammunition was plentiful, and there was a good deal of shouting and laughter before both sides became tired and agreed to call it a draw.

The radio boys were pretty damp with snow water, and their hands were stiff with cold, but trifling discomforts such as these did not bother them much. They had had a good time, and they knew that there is seldom any fun that does not have its own drawbacks. They went to their rooms, changed the wettest of their clothing for dry articles, and were soon ready to test their set.

They were just making a final inspection of their connections when Mr. Layton entered the room, accompanied by two other gentlemen.

Mr. Layton introduced the two latter as the owners of the store he was thinking of purchasing.

“Mr. Blackford and Mr. Robins are rather skeptical about radio,” explained Mr. Layton, when the introductions had been duly accomplished. “I happened to mention it this morning, and as they both seemed to think I was exaggerating its possibilities, I asked them here to see and hear for themselves.”

“It’s no trouble to show goods,” said Bob, grinning. “We haven’t tested for signals yet, but the set is all hooked up, and I guess all we’ll have to do is tune up and get about anything you want.”

“You seem pretty confident,” remarked one of the two strangers, Mr. Robins. “My opinion is, that this radio stuff is mostly bunk. A friend of mine bought a set just a little while ago, and he couldn’t hear a thing with it. Paid fifteen dollars for it, too.”

“I shouldn’t imagine he could,” said Bob, drily. “Mountain Pass must be at least a hundred miles from the nearest broadcasting station, and that set you speak of could never be expected to catch anything more than twenty-five miles away, at the most.”

“Well, I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts you can’t hear anything with that outfit you’ve got there, either,” broke in the other of the two strangers.

“You’d lose your money, Blackford,” said Bob’s father. “Go ahead and convince these doubting Thomases, Bob.”

Bob adjusted a headset over his ears and switched on the current through the vacuum bulb filament. Then he manipulated the voltage of the “B,” or high voltage, dry battery, and also varied the current flowing through the filament by means of a rheostat connected in series with it. Almost immediately he caught a far-away sound of music, and by manipulation of the variometer and condenser knobs gradually increased the strength of the sounds.

Meantime Mr. Layton’s two acquaintances had watched proceedings with open skepticism, and often glanced knowingly at each other. But suddenly, as Bob twisted the knob of the variable condenser, the music became so loud that all in the room could hear it, even though they had no receivers over their ears.

“If either of you two gentlemen will put these receivers on, he’ll be convinced that radio is no fake,” said Bob quietly, at the same time removing his headset and holding it out.

After a moment’s hesitation Mr. Robins donned the receivers, and a startled look came over his face, replacing the incredulous expression it had worn heretofore.

“Let’s hook up another set of phones, Bob, and let Mr. Blackford listen at the same time,” suggested Joe.

This was done, and soon both skeptics were listening to their first radio concert. Mr. Layton regarded them with an amused smile. Mr. Robins extended his hand curiously toward the condenser knob, and immediately the music died away. He pulled his hand hastily away, and the sounds resumed their former volume.

“Don’t be frightened,” laughed Mr. Layton. “It won’t bite you.”

“But what made it fade away in that fashion?” asked Mr. Robins.

“Don’t ask me,” said Bob’s father. “I’m not up on radio the way the boys are. I enjoy it, without knowing much of the modus operandi.”

“That was caused by what is known as ‘body capacity,’” explained Bob. “Every human being is more or less of a natural condenser, and when you get near the regular condenser in that set, it puts more capacity into the circuit, and interferes with its balance.”

The other nodded, although in reality he understood very little of even this simple explanation. He was too much absorbed in listening to what was going on in the phones.

As he listened, he heard the latest stock market quotations given out, among them being the last minute prices of some shares he happened to be interested in. He slapped his knee enthusiastically, and when the last quotations had been given, he snatched off the headset and leaped to his feet.

“I’m converted!” he fairly shouted. “I’ll buy this outfit right as it stands for almost any price you fellows want to put on it. What will you sell it for?”

The boys were taken aback by this unexpected offer, and all looked at Bob expectantly.

“Why, we hadn’t even thought of selling the set,” he said slowly. “We wouldn’t sell it right now, at any price, I think. But when we leave here to go back home, I suppose we might let you have it. How about it, fellows?”

After some argument they agreed to this, but Mr. Robins was so determined to have the set that he would not be put off.

“Now look here,” he said. “I’m a business man, and I’ll make you a business proposition. I’ll buy that outfit right now, before I leave this room, at your own figure. But you fellows can keep it here and have the use of it just the same as you have now, only it will be understood that I’ll have the privilege of coming over here once a day in time to hear those market reports. At the same time you can teach me something about operating the thing. How does that strike you?” and he threw himself back in his chair and waited for his answer.

“We’ll have to talk over that offer for a little while,” said Bob. “Give us ten minutes or so, and we’ll give you an answer.”

“That’s all right,” replied Mr. Robins. “While I’m waiting I’ll just put on those ear pieces again and see what’s doing.”

The radio boys left the room and held an excited conference downstairs. After some discussion they agreed to sell their set, as long as they could have the use of it during their stay at the resort, but the matter of price proved to be a knotty problem. Bob produced pencil and paper, and they figured the actual cost of the set to themselves, and then what the same set would have cost if bought ready made in a retail store.

“The actual material in that set didn’t cost us much over forty dollars, but we put a whole lot of time and experience into it,” said Bob, “It would cost him close to a hundred to get as good a one in a store.”

“It’s a mighty good set, too,” said Joe, a note of regret in his voice. “We might make another as near like it as possible, and not get nearly as good results.”

“Oh, don’t worry. We’re some radio builders by this time,” Herb reminded him. “Besides, that isn’t the only set we’ve got.”

“Let’s ask him eighty dollars,” ventured Jimmy. “He’ll be getting it cheaper then than he could buy it retail, and we’ll be picking up a nice piece of change.”

“I think that ought to be about the right figure,” agreed Bob. “Does that suit this board of directors? Eighty hard, round iron men?”

The others grinned assent, and they returned to the room where the older men were still seated about the radio set.

“Well, what’s the verdict?” inquired Mr. Robins, glancing keenly from one to the other.

“We’ve decided to sell,” replied Bob. “The price will be eighty dollars.”

Without a word Mr. Robins produced a roll of greenbacks, and counted off the specified amount in crisp bills.

“You’ll want a receipt, won’t you, Robins?” inquired Mr. Layton.

“Not necessary,” replied the other. “I’ve got a hunch that your son and his friends are on the level and won’t try to cheat an old fellow like me. I’ll have to be going now, but I’ll be around about the same time tomorrow morning to get the stock quotations. Coming, Blackford?”

CHAPTER XI – A MOUNTAIN RADIO STATION

Left to themselves, the boys looked at one another.

“That’s what I call quick work,” remarked Joe. “I hate to let the old set go, but they say you should never mix sentiment with business.”

“Maybe this will lessen your grief,” said Bob. “Eighty divided by four makes twenty, or at least that’s what they always taught us in school. Take these four five-dollar bills, Joe, and dry your tears with them.”

“Oh, boy!” exclaimed Joe.

“Money, how welcome you are!” ejaculated Herb, as he pocketed his share. “What I can’t do with twenty dollars!”

“That will buy exactly two thousand doughnuts,” calculated Jimmy, a rapturous expression on his round countenance. “Hot doughnuts, crisp brown doughnuts, doughnuts with jelly in them, doughnuts – ”

A human avalanche precipitated itself on the corpulent youngster, and he found himself writhing on the floor with his three companions seated comfortably on different parts of his ample anatomy.

“Hey! Quit, quit!” stuttered Jimmy. “Get off me, you hobos! You’ll have me flattened out like a dog that’s just been run over by a steam roller.”

“And serve you right, too,” retorted Joe. “What do you mean by talking about doughnuts when it’s almost dinner time, and we’re starved to death, anyway. Besides, you know there isn’t a place at Mountain Pass where we can buy them.”

“Yes, and if I’d known that before I started, I would probably have stayed at home,” retorted Jimmy. “Get off me, will you, before I throw you off?”

“We’ll let you up, but I doubt if you should be trusted with all that money,” returned Bob, grinning. “You’d better whack it up among us, Jimmy. You’ll just buy a lot of junk with it and make yourself sick.”

“Well, I’ve got a right to get sick if I want to,” said his rotund friend, struggling to his feet. “If you get that twenty away from me, it will have to be over my dead body.”

“It doesn’t seem worth while to kill him for just twenty dollars,” said Bob, pretending to consider. “That’s just a little over six dollars apiece.”

“No good,” said Joe, decisively. “It would cost more than that to bury him.”

“You’re a cold-blooded set of bandits,” complained Jimmy, in an aggrieved tone. “I’m glad I haven’t got a hundred dollars with me. I’d be a mighty poor insurance risk then, I suppose.”

“I wouldn’t give a lead nickel for your chances,” said Bob. “But don’t let that worry you, Jimmy. You’ll probably never have that much money all at one time as long as you live.”

“I won’t if I wait for you fellows to give it to me,” admitted his friend. “But I’m going over to the hotel and see if dinner is served yet. I’m not going to be the last one in the dining room at every meal.”

“When you get the hang of this place, you’ll always be the first one,” said Herb. “After a little while they’ll make you up a bunk in a corner, and you can even sleep there.”

“Oh, go chase yourself!” exclaimed Jimmy. “You never learned how to eat, Herb, and that’s why you’re such a human bean pole,” and with this parting shot he slammed the door behind him before Herb could think of a suitable reply.

“He got you that time, Herb,” said Bob, with a grin. “I guess we might as well all get ready for dinner. Dad says they hate to have people coming in late.”

Every day after that Mr. Robins dropped in in time to hear the market reports, sometimes alone, and at others accompanied by his partner, Mr. Blackford. The latter was not quite so enthusiastic as his colleague, but he was nevertheless greatly interested, and was always glad to don a head set and hear what was going on.

True to their agreement, the boys instructed the new owner of the set how to adjust it and get the best results. He always paid the closest attention to what they told him, and in a few days could pick up signals and tune the set fairly well.

“Not bad for an old fellow, eh?” he exclaimed delightedly one day, when he had accomplished the whole thing without any aid from the boys. “If Blackford and I sell out to your father, Bob, I’ll have a little leisure time, and blame it all if I don’t think I’ll do some experimenting and possibly some building myself.”

“You’re pretty badly bitten by the radio bug,” observed his partner.

“I won’t try to deny it,” said the other, emphatically. “The more I think about it, the more wonderful it seems. Besides, it’s got a mighty practical side to it. I was holding on to some shares a few days ago until I learned by way of the radio that they were starting to fall. I sent a telegram to my brokers, they sold out for me just in the nick of time, and I made a profit on the deal instead of having to take a loss. The bottom dropped clean out of the market that same afternoon, and if I’d been holding on to those shares, I would have gotten bumped good and hard.”

The other nodded. “It’s a good investment when you look at it that way,” he admitted.

“Good investment is right,” declared his partner. “I saved a lot more in that deal than the whole radio outfit cost me, and I still own the set.”

“I wonder why the new government wireless station doesn’t do something of the kind,” remarked Mr. Blackford. “They might as well make themselves useful as well as ornamental.”

“Government station!” exclaimed Bob and Joe at once. “Is there a government station at Mountain Pass?”

Mr. Blackford nodded. “I thought you fellows knew about it, or I’d have mentioned it before,” he said. “It was just opened a few weeks ago, and I don’t think they’ve got all their equipment in yet. There’s been some delay in getting the stuff here, I understand.”

“What does the government want of a wireless station away up here?” asked Bob.

“This is the highest point in all the surrounding country and makes an ideal lookout for forest fires,” said his informant. “The station was supposed to be ready for use last summer, but, as I say, was delayed a good deal. But we expect it to be of great service in the future. There have been some disastrous forest fires around here in the last few years, as you probably know.”

“We ought, to know it,” remarked Joe. “The smoke has been so thick as far away as Clintonia sometimes that you could cut it with a hatchet. It’s about time something was done to stop it.”

Of course, once they heard about the government station, the boys could think of nothing else until they had visited it. Bob proposed that they go right after lunch, and this met with the enthusiastic approval of his friends. Poor Jimmy was so rushed by his eager friends that he was frustrated in his design of asking for a second helping of chocolate pudding, and was hurried away protesting vainly against such unseemly haste.

“What do you Indians think you’re doing?” he grumbled. “Do you all want to die of indigestion? Don’t you know you’re supposed to rest after a meal and give your stomach a chance?”

“Oh, dry up,” said Joe, heartlessly. “If you didn’t eat so much you wouldn’t want to lie around for two hours after every meal like a Brazilian anaconda. You know you didn’t want another plate of that pudding, anyway.”

“Didn’t I!” said Jimmy, disconsolately. “That was about the best pudding I ever tasted, bar none. You fellows are such radio bugs that you can’t even pay proper attention to what you’re eating.”

“You give enough attention to that to make up for the whole gang,” said Bob. “Stop your growling and step along lively, old timer.”

Jimmy grumbled a little more in spite of this admonition, but regained his usual cheery mood when he saw the steel lattice-work towers with the familiar antenna sweeping in graceful spans between them, and forgot all about the missing plate of pudding.

The station was situated some distance from the Mountain Rest Hotel in a clearing cut out of the dense pine woods, and the boys ceased to wonder why they had not discovered it on some of their rambles. As they drew near they could see that everything was solidly and substantially built, as is usually the case with government work.

The station, besides the towers, comprised a large, comfortable building, which housed all the sending and receiving equipment, and a smaller building, in which the operators slept when off duty, and where spare equipment was stored.

The radio boys knocked at the door of the larger building, and after a short wait it was opened by a tall, rather frail looking young fellow, who eyed them inquiringly.

Bob explained that he and his friends were radio fans, and were anxious to look over the station, if it would not cause too much inconvenience.

“Not a bit of it,” said the young operator, heartily. “To tell you the truth, there is not much doing here at this time of year, and company is mighty welcome. Step in and I’ll be glad to show you around the place.”

CHAPTER XII – THE MARVELOUS SCIENCE

Inside of half an hour the boys were on a friendly footing with the young operator and felt as though they had known him a long time. He was only a few years older than themselves, and had been a full-fledged operator for about six months. The Mountain Pass station was his first assignment, and he was inordinately proud of the complicated apparatus that went to compose it.

“This is some little station that Uncle Sam has rigged up here, and while there are plenty of bigger ones, there are very few that are more complete and up to date. Look at this three unit generator set, for instance. Compact, neat, and efficient, as you can easily see. It doesn’t take up much room, but it can do a whole lot.”

“It does look as though it were built for business,” admitted Bob. “I suppose that unit in the center is the driving motor, isn’t it?”

“Right,” said the other. “And the one nearest you is a two thousand volt generator for supplying the plate circuit. The one at the other end is a double current generator. That supplies direct current at one hundred and twenty-five volts and four amps for the exciter circuit, and alternating current at eighty-eight volts and ten amps for feeding that twelve volt filament heating transformer that you see over there in the corner.”

“Pretty neat, I’ll say,” remarked Joe.

“I think so,” said the other, and continued to point out the salient and interesting features of the equipment. “Over here, you see, is our main instrument panel. These dials over here control the variable condensers, and the other ones control the variometers. But there!” he exclaimed, catching himself up short. “I suppose none of you ever heard of such things before, did you?”

The radio boys looked at each other, and could not help laughing.

“We’ve got a faint idea what they are, anyway,” chuckled Bob. “We’ve made enough of them to be on speaking terms, I should say.”

“Made them!” exclaimed the other, surprised in his turn.

“Sure thing,” grinned Bob. “We’ve made crystal detector sets and vacuum tube sets, and – ”

“And other sets that we never knew just how to describe,” interrupted the irrepressible Herb, with a laugh.

“Yes, that kind too,” admitted Bob, with a grin. “But, anyway, we’ve made enough to know the difference between a variometer and a condenser.”

“Well, I didn’t know I was talking to old hands at the game,” said the operator. “I suppose I might have known that you wouldn’t take that long walk out here through the snow unless you were pretty well interested in radio.”

“Yes, we’re dyed-in-the-wool fans,” admitted Bob, and told the operator something of their radio work.

“I’m mighty glad to know that you fellows do understand the subject,” said the operator, when Bob had finished. “I’m so enthusiastic about it myself, that it is a real pleasure to have somebody to talk to that knows what I’m talking about. So many of the people who come here seem to be natural born dumb-bells – at least, on the subject of radio.”

“Such as you took us for at first, eh?” asked Jimmy, with a grin.

“I apologize for that,” said the other, frankly. “Please don’t hold it against me.”

“Personally, I don’t blame you a bit,” said Bob. “We can’t expect you to be a mind reader.”

“Well, then, that’s settled; so let’s look at the rest of the station,” said the operator, whose name was Bert Thompson. “This is our transmitter panel over here. It is very compact, as you can see for yourselves.”

He opened two doors at the front, one at the bottom, and raised the cover, thus exposing most of the interior mechanism to view.

“Here are all the fuse blocks down at the bottom, you see,” Thompson continued. “The various switches are conveniently arranged where you can easily get at them while you are sitting in front of the panel. Then up here are the microphones, with their coils and wiring where you can easily get at them for inspection or repairs. Rather a neat lay-out, don’t you think?”

“No doubt of it!” exclaimed Bob, admiringly. “We’ve never made a CW transmitting set yet, but we hope to some day. A set like this would cost a pile of money, even if you made it yourself.”

“Rather so,” admitted the young operator. “It takes a rich old fellow like Uncle Sam to pony up for a set like that.”

“We’re more interested in receiving sets just at present,” said Joe. “Let’s take a look at that end of the outfit.”

“Anything you like,” said Thompson, readily. “That panel is located on this side of the room.”

“I suppose you use a regenerative circuit, don’t you?” asked Bob.

“Oh, yes,” answered the other. “That helps out a lot in increasing the strength of the incoming sounds.”

“I suppose you use a tickler coil in the plate circuit, don’t you?” ventured Joe.

“No, in this set we use a variometer in the plate circuit instead,” said Thompson.

“Speaking of regenerative circuits, have you heard about Armstrong’s new invention?” asked Bob.

The operator shook his head. “Can’t say that I have,” he said. “It must be something very recent, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I believe it is,” said Bob. “I read about it the other day in one of the latest radio magazines.”

“Do you remember how it worked?” asked Thompson, eagerly. “I wish you’d tell me about it, if you do.”

“I’ll do my best,” promised Bob. “The main idea seems to be to make one tube do as much as three tubes did before. Armstrong found that the limit of amplification had been reached when the negative charge in the tube approaches the positive charge. By experimenting he found that it was possible to increase the negative charge temporarily, for something like one twenty-thousandth of a second, I think it was. This is far above the positive for that tiny fraction of a second, and yet the average negative charge is lower. It is this increase that makes the enormous amplification possible, and lets the operator discard two vacuum tubes.”

“Sounds good,” said Thompson. “Do you suppose you could draw me a rough sketch of the circuit?”

“Let’s have a pencil and some paper, and I’ll make a try at it,” said Bob. “I doped it out at the time, but likely I’ve forgotten it since then.”

Nevertheless, with the friendly aid of the eraser on the end of the pencil, he sketched a circuit that the experienced professional had no difficulty in understanding.

“You see,” explained Bob, “with this hook up you use the regular Armstrong regenerative circuit, with the second tube connected so that it acts as an automatic switch, cutting in or out a few turns of the secondary coil. The plate circuit of the second tube is connected to the plate of the detector tube through both capacity and inductance.”

“I get you,” nodded the operator. “According to your sketch the plate and grid of the second tube are coupled inductively, causing variation in the positive resistance of the tuned circuit.”

“That’s the idea exactly,” agreed Bob. “You see, this is done by means of the oscillating tube, the grid circuit being connected through the tuned circuit of the amplifying tube.”

“Say, that looks pretty good to me!” exclaimed Thompson. “I wonder how Armstrong ever came to dope that out. I’ve been trying to get something of the kind for a long time, but I never seemed to get quite the right combination.”

“Well, better luck next time,” said Bob, sympathetically. “There are a lot of people working at radio problems, and it seems to be a pretty close race between the inventors. Something new is being discovered almost every day.”