Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-05-05
VEST POCKET PHONE

Messages Filtered From Wires
 Three Miles of. DEVICE OF WIRELESS VARIETY. How Its Inventor Achieved Success When on stormy Night His Ma chine Caught the Voices of the
 Night Unsolicited - It's Probabilities l Said to Be Limitless.
 Charles E. Alden of New York, who has been pursuing experiments at Cot tage City, Mass, since last fall in wire less telephoning, has, he says, solved the problem of wireless telephoning, and the result is so simple that 1t Is likely to create sensation in the busi- ness world as well as in scientific cir cles, says a special dispatch from Cot tage City to the New York World.
 Mir. Alden, while studying the prob lem. constructed an instrument so small that it can be put into a vest pocket, which, attached to wireless battery such as is used by the Marconi system, at once begins catching con versations carried along ordinary tele- phone wires, the distance depending only upon the energy behind the tele- phones that are sending the messages. It was one stormy night few weeks ago, when Mr. Alden had perfected his little receiver and set it up in his studio at Cottage City on Martha's Vineyard island, that he sat smoking his after dinner pipe and wondering where he had better set up his sending apparatus when he was startled by the sound of voice in the room, of which he was the only occupant. Outside the storm howled along the coast and beat the waves against the rocks of the island.
 Hello! Hello! Is that Mrs. Smith? Yes? Come over this evening if you can"
 All right. Goodby.'
 MT. Alden sat bolt upright. Then he got up and went to the door. There was no one there. The little instru- ment on the table began to buzz again, and then came another voice, differ ent one this time, asking the price of eggs and ordering groceryman to send up some potatoes first thing in the morning.
 Like flash Mir. Alden realized the situation. His little instrument was not waiting for his sending instrument to be set up, but was pilfering mes sages from the New England Telephone company's wire which ran along a road three miles away. Wild with de- light, Mir. Alden rushed across lots and got some of his friends to come in and witness the success of his discovery. When they arrived the little apparatus was still busy disclosing neighborhood gossip and all sorts of messages that were buzzing over the wires of the island.
 To a reporter who called upon him Mir. Alden told the story of his discov- cry and how the voices of the night came to him unsolicited, like the talk of spirits.
 T was sitting in my room one night when it dawned upon me that, with the wireless telegraph comparatively simple, the wireless telephone must be equally simple. jotted down on pa- per my ideas as they came to me and the next morning went to work upon my machine. was merely expert menting, not having the remotest idea that I was anywhere near success. Suddenly, when I did not dream had perfected the machine. I received the messages from neighboring ordinary telephones as I have told you. The revelation took me off my feet"
 The basis of the system Is like that of the wireless telegraph. But small invention, the details of which he does not make public, completes it. This is called the new detector." It is this machine, attached to the wireless bat teries, which is responsible for the re- suits. No wire was attached to the re- ceiving instrument, the latter simply being placed on a table in room. At present Mir. Alden is working on the sending parts of the apparatus.
 The possibilities are almost limitless. With this new invention one may yet be able to carry around il his pocket private telephone, with which he can call up bis house and talk with his family wherever he may be. Persons sitting in the grand stand at the race track may telephone to their friends in the city the results of the races unde- tected.
 Messages sent by telephones keyed to ordinary. tension may be received by any one within miles who has a pocket telephone. And the perfection of the attuning apparatus. by which individ- ual telephones are keyed to any frac- tion of ''note' or degree of tension, may make it possible to have compara- tive secrecy. as receivers will take the message only when attuned to perfect accord. And the wireless telegraph experiments have shown that there can in time be thousands of these fractions