Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1907-03-10
WIRELESS INVENTION BY BOYS
station Set IN ny Two Lads at Calves
ton. who Devised Their own
Instruments.

telegraph device by which they are able
to copy all the messages sent by or re-
ceived from the Galveston wireless station
and are able to break in with their trans
hitting instruments and disturb the send
ing OF messages.
Their operations started about a year
ago, not long after the wireless station was
erected here The boys who were then
about Is. thought IL would be Interesting
to invent wireless system Of their own.
Roy Clough who took the principal part
setting up the wireless station, knows a
great deal about electricity and earns the
money to carry on his experiments by
making storage batteries for auto owners
in this city His father, who was a tele-
graph operator for eleven years, and from
whom the boy doubtless derived some-
thing of his present tastes. is now a prac-
ticng attorney in the city.
George Mckenzie Douglas, who was IL
at the time the wireless experiments were
started, is an enthusiastic student of cleo
tricity and electrical engineering He is at
the present time living I'm New Orleans, but
the work OF perfecting the new system is
going on here just the same in the hands
of his partner, Clough.
The experiments In the beginning were
very crude. In telling of this part of the
work young Clough said:
ITO start with, we were very much handi-
capped, for we had never seen a wireless
apparatus before, and Furthermore, we
knew of no other receiver except the CO.
herer. And we started in to make one.
Douglas said they were made out of car
bon grains We had no phone receiver.
but l made one out of an old hairpin box
of my mothers.
NEa cd he for nltr
antennae and led a wire down to my labora-
tory, as we called the place where
worked. We drove a piece of iron pipe in
the ground and put a wire on 1t so that we
had our ground and antennae all right, as
we thought But we could not get any re-
suits from. it,
About this time devised a receiver We
could not get any platinum wire In the
city, and so / got the tube out of an old
incandescant lamp which had two small
platinum wires in II. 1 broke of one Of
them to get as small a surface as possible
and left the other one on.
1--WE connected the positive terminal of a
dry cell to the large platinum wire in the
tube. 1 then put our phone receiver in cir
cult with the negative of the battery and
the small platinum wire.
"Our receiver was then ready for the
solution. broke the neck OFF bottle and
corked it up. / filled the neck of the bottle
half full of a solution of nitric acid, gly-
cerine and water. In this solution we put
the tube of the incandescent lamp.
I'VE now put up a fifteen foot pole and
led two wires to the top of It. Our aerial
wire was now thirty feet from the ground.
At this time George Douglas moved to-
New Orleans, and I was left to shift for
myself.
II had now fastened my ground and
aerial to the receiver and was sitting with
the phone to my head when there came
the call 'SW, CIV, which was Galveston
calling Southwest Pass, La, 1 hardly
knew what to think as II seemed so strange
that could sit up In my room and copy
all that the station was sending.
II now had the receiver, and the next
thing to do was TO get my transmitter.
had no induction coil but / took one on
my fathers auto when he was not looking
and tried that, but the Galveston station
would not answer me. 1 then sent off for
a coil that threw a one-half inch spark.
when it arrived / got it all In shape
and went to school After school I got
home quick, you may be sure, to try 1t.
THE Galveston station, noticed called
Southwest Pass every day for five minutes,
beginning at p M AS soon as they had
signed on 1 answered. calling them CIV
and signing my call as 'SW.'
-'They said something back so fast that
1 could not read 1t. l could not get an
answer any more, and so the next day
when they called answered as before and
signed my right call, which is CIR.
THE operator, Mr. Thurston, knew that
/ had been speaking about copying mes
sages from them, so that when l answered
him the telephone rang, My mother says
Roy, some one wants to speak to YOU
l went to the phone and Mr.. Thurston saidi
You VIII have to stop butting In down
there or we will send some one there to
tear 1t down
II did not say much, but said that would
think about it. and he rang off. So you
see the station could not receive when
was sending"
When il comes to explaining his invention
in detail the young inventor SHES He
says ne has not secured patents for the
instruments and devices and cannot reveal
the secrets OF tho invention.
The furthest I ever received was $50
miles, from the Mallory steamer Concho at
sea one Sunday morning" he said. Il can
sit in my room and copy Port Arthur sixty
five miles away and Houston fifty miles
away every time they send a message.
think that is pretty good for a thirty foot
antennae."
When questioned as 20 what he hopes
to make out Of his wireless experiments
and inventions young Clough said:
81 intend to improve my wireless instru-
ments so that the static makes no difference
at all and that can work easily over
land as over water without large amount
OF energy and high poles. Because OF the
static, that ever present amount OF cleo
tricity in the atmosphere, the De Foress
station here cannot get Austin, which is
only % miles inland. / forgot to say that
! used q tuner on my receiver.
For my antennae wires / am using at
present three wires Of No II galvanized
wire. The way they are used or connected
is a secret known only 70 me.
II would not advise any one taking up
wireless to start on a coherer as receiver.
The coherer is not sensitive enough for
fast and reliable work. The auto coherer
is no good for wireless as It coheres to stay
under strong impulses or waves, and re-
quires TO be tapped like the nickel and sill
yer coherer.
with my system I have an apparatus
70 .fgrHv, 10 COT q