The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-01-06
WIRELESS MESSAGE AT HOME Ensley Man in Touch With
 Cape Cod TALKS OF HIS PLANS Spends Evenings Working on His Equipment and Catching Mes
 sages From All Parts of
 North America
TALKS OF HIS PLANS
nv CRAWFORD PERKINS

A complete equipment for receiving mes- sages by the aerial route has been erected in Ensley. Burch Graves, young elec- trician and trouble man'' for the Peo- ple's Home Telephone company in his rooms at 2lO7 Avenue G, has for about month been receiving wireless messages over his self equipped system as they came floating inland from along the At lantic coast.
 when the reporter was shown to Graves room last night he was found seated be- fore his instrument with two receivers strapped to his head busy taking mes sage that was being sent from the bat tleship Florida at sea to the battleshlp Utah to the effect that an unknown dead body had been found floating in the sea and making inquiry regarding it.
 As an introduction to the uninitiated this was rather spooky Graves greeted the reporter and unstrappng his headgear divided it and offered a receiver to the reporter that he might hear the great ana mysterious ticking of the wireless. The little buzzing ticker, making noise re- sembling a green fly on window pane, immediately got busy and Graves an nounced that he was connected "lth Cape Cod. Mass, who was sending out the weather forecast for Friday for the upper St. Lawrence river and the north west section of the United States The wire predicted a cold and hard gale Tor the northern country The same message stated that in the south and west light
 Friday
 Interested From Boyh00d
 Graves is an interesting talker and ap- pears to know what he Is about. Since boyhood he has had fancy for electri- cal workings, with fondness for inven- tions The tuning coil used by him is one of his inventions and he says that no other one like it is in use. It consists of two cylinders joined together and wrapped with copper wire together with some other things, known only to the inventor His aerial which catches the messages consists of three bare copper wires which are strung in a pine tree 65 feet from the ground in the back yard of his residence. The system was set Ip December 10 last. In explaining how his wireless works Graves stated that the messages which are sent out from differ- ent stations along the Atlantic seaboard come in on different wave lengths and according to the point of the tuning coll. He can select what station he desires to receive from by adjusting his tuning coil. However ne cannot catch the conversa- ton of two stations at one and the same time owing to his limited equipment. For instance if New Orleans and Key West are talking and Norfolk and Pensacola start up a conversation a conflict will then occur in the wave lengths which up- sets Graves connection and he is thrown off the air waves With his meager equip ment he cannot control the currents snt- ficiently to catch both messages at the same time. Under favorable conditions his system covers range of several thou cand miles or from Cape Cod, Mass, 10 Panama and as far southwest as Calves ton He heard several messages from Galveston last night. He can also in- tercept messages from ships at sea as far as the middle of the Atlantic.
 Height Is Insignificant
 The success of Graves instrument here is considered remarkable owing to the insignificant height of his aerial. What I am doing here is to perfect some ex- periments in wireless telegraphy upon which am working" he said. If there are any 'doubting Thomases' who dis credit what I claim they are at liberty 10 visit my rooms and hear the messages for themselves. Since I came to Ensley I have had designs on the pleasing height of the Brown Marx building in Birming- ham and if I could rig up an equipment on top of that lofty structure I am sure would have no trouble in catching any message that might be floating around in the atmosphere"
 Graves home is in Thornton. Ind, where he was born and reared. He has nad wide experience in electricity and has worked in all parts of the United States and Canada He first became interested in wireless telegraphy in Seattle. He worked the wireless on board steamships plying the Seattle trade. He studied the Morse and Marconi and continental codes in Indianapolis under the auspices of the Y. M. c. A. of that city. As troubse man" for the local telephone company tsfe fs, l.,no Iofa ft,o