The Alaska citizen., 1911-05-08
B0YSARE WIZARDS
 AT WIRELESS
VANCOUVER BOYS HAVE GREAT FUN WITH THE VARIOUS
 COAST SYSTEMS.

IL. al, 10 say nothing ot the regular newsservicc. are. and have been for months. in the hands of half a dozen bright young lads of Nancou- yer.
 these embryo geniuscs have rigged up st least four tirs' class wire less stations in the city which they keep in constant usc These sta tons comprise a complete sending and receiving apparatus. and while their transmission circuit is limit ed they receive anything coming in from as far south as San Francis co. and have taken messages sent l.500 miles out al sea.
 Harold Jones. whose father Is II. A Jones. of N77 Hornhy street. and Vancouver pioneer. is responsible for much of the ingenuity which has been displayed in working out and putting together the various meChan isms involved in making the system one of practical efficiency. He is also an expert in taking and sending mes sages. though, as he mOdestly puts it: Kelly is the best of the bunch, hes lot quicker than am. Hes nifty sender. and takes em some thing swell"
 Kelly" owns and operates the Grandyiew station.
 Young Jones is slender lad, with an alert. intelligent face and bright dark eyes Since he was a tot ill kits he has had more than the av. craze boys penchant for "seein how the wheels go round" and the pas sion has developed a. he has grown older
 Now at the age of fifteen he has an excellent knowledge of mechanics. is first class electrician and some thing of an inventor on his own ac- count
 Up in his little cupola room over his home. which has been transform ed into an up to date wireless sta tion. he scientifically explained he working of the intricate little in struments by which he was surround ed. He also gave in detail the as tonishing progress made by these mere youngsters in serious study of he work since they took il up as boyish fancy something like year ago
 Well. there are four of Us fel- lows who are really doing good work Kelly of Grandyiew Bodie and Macdonald of Fairview. and myself. he explained Of course there are lots of fellows in town who have lit- tie toy stations like We began with. Father got me a 1oy model of wireless outfit few months ago, and from that. and by studying up in books and magazines We worked the thing out till W" hav" fairly good system.
 T have made most of my instru, ments myself; this is the helix and spark apparatus, and here is the re ceiver This transformer will step up ll0 volts to l2,00o volts. My out fit rates only third of a kilOwatt. while that of Point Grey is kilo- watt; the one at San Francisco is fifteen kilowatts.'
 The young electrician then enter ed upon a long and technical elucida- tion concerning cores" 'thirty-tVe wire secondary" "twentywire pri- mary" soft iron plates" high aer- ials," closing with a scientific expo sition of the advantages of silk GOV cred wire over enameled wire,
 Some men prefer the enameled wire, but can't see it; I've always used the silk covered. and always will" commented this mechanician and electrician of fifteen, seriously,
 "Of practical use? Why, l should say it is, Us fellows got all the baseball news last season before any of the other fellows had any tip on 1t, Of course lots of messages are just personal stuff like Will ar rive noon today; meet at boat; and things like that; or like this morn ing, the Royal was calling Prince George; she was going out this morn ing. There, That's Point Grey talking now can tell his spark every time My spark is something like the Friday HarbOr spark, only theirs is a little higher pitched. Some times the boys cant tell us apart.
 The operator on the Royal told me the government station al Vic ,oria had caught our stuff don't know whether he was jOshing or not but We get everything the govern ment station sends That time the Prince George was on the beach got them and talked to them. They gave me a message from the cap tain to phone to the company here telling them to send out a good strong tug Point Grey got 1t after ward and gee! that fellow was mad. He says I'll fix those kids stealing messages'
 No, don't know how they could keep us from getting onto anything that's going unless they would use a cipher of some kind. We've got so We can take as fast as most of 'em can send. Kelly can get it fast CT than he can write, and he's some penman, too. We took a hundred word message sent to Point Grey not long ago, and there wasn't mistake in 1t from beginning to end. The Grandview station is higher than mine so they get San Francisco stuff all the time; I've never heard Frisco but twice from here. The best they ever did at Grandview was to get a message from the Makura when she said she was 1900 miles out.
 T have a switchboard by my bed, and can take anything they send at night if I want to. We're studying all the time to get it down finer, and we take all the electrical maga zines and read all we can get about it. You can learn almost any old graft from books. If a war or come thing would come along it would be mighty exciting, and unless they used an awful hard code I bet we'd get all the secret messages! That is, un- loac thov cent like hlazeS (he con Sid-