Daily Kennebec journal., 1901-12-24
CODESC0NFUSED.
Odd Messages Worry the
Wireless TeIegraphers.
Strange Dispatches Come Floating in
From Anywhere.
An Enolish Wireless Expert Tells Some Of Mis-
Experiences.

Something is always going wrong
with the apparatus, and ii takes you
hours and hours to find out what 1t is.
TO n great extent, o. course. YOU are
working in an "!-k..1WIi world governed
by unknown laws. And by the time
that you have found out what has hap
pened and put matters 10 rights you
have probably altered half :; dozen 9th
rr conditions without knowing il. 50
that YOU arc Il good IL al worse off than
YOU were before.
Not very long ago | had 4 curious eX-
perience. \ message. suddenly came to
hand from Il mysterious source. and
proceeded t. p.'inl itself of as usual
upon the tape. When | tried 10 de
cipher it, however. found il utterly
umintelligihl". There We're dots and
there Mere dIsles. in all sorts IF conf
binations but sometimes these re-
solved themselves into Morse letters.
and sometimes they lid not. Ther"
was a certain lisconnc, tedn"ss about
it. too. which pre,lided the idea Of its
being in private cipher. | could make
nothing of il. The meSsaSc--if it vas
a message at all. and not TIL" chance
result OF SCmC obscure atmospheric
conditions-waS simply an incohercnt
tumble of spasnlodic sibbclish. Had
unwittinsly developed mediumistic
qualities and had the usual spirit
writing" taken tn" form? of spirit tel
eGrapny. Or was this message from
Mars? After about an hours hard
work, however. l discovered that the
explanation was much moro prosair.
An earwig was walking about on tn"
tongue of the relay. and it's perambu-
lations We're being transmitted TO the
receiver in the form of dasheS and
dots. and SO reproduced upon the tape.
Occasionally, however. impulses do
arrive from nowhere. and a very great
nuisance they arc. Until quite recently
theS. diSturbar, eS have been litribut-
ed to some slight vibration of the CO.
herer which. il was supposed. caused
the filings contained in it to settle down
closer to each other and thus 20 be-
come sufficiently conductive TO regis
ter signal. The real cause. however
has now been discovered. and a method
devised to overcome i.
Sometimes only very little ina agina-
ton is required to translate these cas-
ual impulses into words. One of my
u
sage just after he had been observing
the solar eclipse of May. 1900. Th-
communication as whole was unintel-
ligible, but in the middle of it the word
eclipse" came clearly out No other
wireless apparatus was at work within
hundreds of miles. and an ina gina tive
operator would probably have jumped
TO the conclusion that he had con
structed receiver far better than
anybody elses. and that an immense
advance had been made in the distance.
70 which messages could be sent B,-
ing merely a hard headed scientist.
however. he simply put the phenoms-
non on one side. rs a probe m Ia be al
tended to whenever he might find more
convenient opportunity.
y greater nuisance still is the way il.
which one is constantly getting hold OF
other peoples messages. The public
have been carefully educated into be-
lieving that transmitter and receiver
can bc tuned to one another, so that
Their own messages cannot be tapped,
while they themselves become insus-
ceptible to those from ether stations.
This is the ease. however. only to q
limited extent. y rival operator. if
he cares to take III, trouble. can gen
orally discover the pitch Of your H.
strumentS. and though. by sending
your communications il cipher. vcu
can prevent him from obtaining inl0r-
nation, you cannot stop him from Wor-
rying YOU most fearfuliy by sending
messages of his own in the same key. \
the result being that the two get mixed
ED together into an nextricabl"
tumble. If he 50 choose in fact he
can practically monopolize the ether
for >" or loo miles in every direction.
by simply sitting down at his trans
mitter and sendirg out dashes and
dots.
This in fact. is ow communication !,
set up between experimental stations. one
Of tn" two operators transmits the lette:
E-thrcc dots followed by a dash-by the
other "nd receives 1t. So 1t frequently
happens that the .thcr for a radius Of
~ miles round is fun. so to speak. of let
ter ' s. and has no accommodation fer
anything else. and il You try to send
messages on your own account your cor
Respondent gets a result something like
signals. that IS fiji, M the spaces II, twecn
the dots of the N'S. and SO form a series
OF dasics. with an occasional clear V be-
tween the words you are trying to send
"h ultufltl instruments. OIL course,
you are constantly receiving message;
that were not intended for YOU. Two
amusing instances Of this occurred to mo
quite lately.
In the first place. while | was communi-
eating with my f"llow-op,rator across
the mouth of the Thames, my receiver
began clicking in a manner that b.
tokened different hand So I ,cir-
Sraph"d back: Who are you? Don't
Know yo'ir s'ndinG.' The answer came
Immediately: We are II. NJ. S. =. and
am Lieut.. Blank. Will you come and
dihc with me this cvening?"> | asked,
ewing particulars as to where | was to
TO be found. No message came back. but
at 30 =. NJ Lieut.. Blank duly turned
up.
On the other occasion my receiver sud
denly clicked out the words: Il have ilst
got back from tea. Please send me some
VS.. Now it so happened that my own
correspondent never tales tea. that I
mad clearly got hold of Il message in
tended for somebody else. Gould / find
out who he was and where he was work
ing from? 1t was worth trying so
clicked back: 20. X. Did you have 4,
sood tea" Back came the answer:
,First-rat". thanks. Who are yo,,:"
rms question | ignored. replying with :,
cepth OF guile worthy of a Roer surpris.
!arty: II suppose you are our station AZ
Dover My friend. however. was not to
pe nra~h We aie working for Dover
nc nc. answered: and nothing more could [
get or Of him. ~
Dut Creates. ,f ,.i