The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1904-04-01
WORK OF A WIRELESS. "
A NIGHT IN THE TELEGRAPH
ROOM ABOARD A LINER.

That of a Ships Officer.
A year or more ago the first Mar
conf operator on a transatlantic liner
began his work Now hardly a week
goes by that we do not learn Of a
new ship equipped for wireless tele-
graphing, and the Marconi man has
become a recognized feature of ocean
travel. / have travelled with these
men, and | shall describe a night
spent with one aboard the st. Paul.
A wet wind blew in from the south
west all the evening and the ship
swung along through easy seas at a
twenty knot gait, well in midocean.
Below, on the promenade decks, the
passengers heard now and then sib-
liant cracking that seemed to come
from somewhere in the air above the
ship--a peculiar sound, almost too
high-pitched for some ears. Aloft, on
the fiddiey deck, the wooden house,
ten feet square, whence the cracking
noise issued, glowed with electric
light Here we sat, the operator in
his shirt sleeves at the big key, now
and then rapping out a call that, with
in the narrow confines of the little
cabin, sounded like suffering pistol
shots showing blue-white lightning
flashes as the current leaped from
the "sparker" at each bend Of the
wrist. and causing blue flame to play
about the six leyden jars.
For minutes at time the call shot
forth; then the operator would shift
connections to the receiver and listen
for as many minutes, carefully adjust
ing and readjusting the delicate in
strument meanwhile They were
blocks of delicate and complicated ma
ehinery, carefully cased in wooden
boxes, their supports carefully pad
ded to steady them against the least
vibration. There was a strip of paper
to record messages, like the tape on
the old Morse telegraph instruments;
but that is not necessary to the op-
orator who can read by sound" The
wires from the machines passed
through the roof of the office to the
top of the aftermast directly above
and were held apart by long wooden
"spreader," which made them look so
much like stays that the uninitiated
would hardly distinguish them from
a part of the ships rigging.
Word came down from the bridge
early in the evening that we should
probably pass the Philadelphia some
time between midnight and dawn.
This meant all-night work for the Mar
conf man, who takes care to be at his
instrument an hour or two before
ship is expected to come within his
reach. The amount Of electric power
aboard an ordinary liner is sufficient
to send wireless messages $50 miles
under favorable circumstances. Know
ing the sailing days and speeds of
the ships that they are likely to meet
or overtake, the navigating officers of
a liner can calculate roughly when
they are likely to come within the
required radius of another floating
telegraph office. Thus the operator
was feeling about" this evening in
the upper air.
Toward midnight the first answer
came to the receiver from the I'M
known deep-faint, disconnected taps.
The operator called and listened, but
the faint tapping, though it grew
louder, did not become coherent nor
could he read it on the tape, We got
the letters p. H., which surely meant
the Philadelphia, and our own call;
then everything suddenly ceased. The
ship was within reach we knew, but
there was no further answer to our
constant query of P. H., P. H., P. H.
Connections were broken in some way
and it was for us to find out how.
We went outside and gazed upward
into the darkness, but the wires SEEM
ed 10 be intact. For an instant the
full light of the moon flooded through