El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1912-11-30
PARIS Race Suicide Banks For the H LONDON
CABLE Alarms English Farmer CABLE
BUDGET H the French Are Planned H BUDGET
NAVY WIRELESS
STATION At WORK
Many Details Yet to Be Ar
ranged, but Messages
Are Many.
tBy winfield JOnes.)

Washington, D. c., Nov 3O.-Shut in
a sound proof room, with built up
doors like a refrigerator, six wireless
operators can simultaneously take mes
sages out of the air from the aerial
that stretches between the tops of the
big skeleton towers that the navy de-
partment has erected at Arlington, Va,
near Washington.
Six operators are not doing this now
because the new station is by no means
in working order. but that is the ca
pacity for which it is built. Wire from
the aerial runs into this isolated room
and branches to the six sets of send
ing and receiving instruments. If Co
Ion and Guantanamo and San francisco
are all talking at the same time, each
VIII be using a different wave length,
according to the capacity Of its plant.
This wave length can be varied by the
sending operator within a range of 20
percent.
The operator who is taking the mes
sage simply tunes mis- receiver up or
down until he gets the key in which
the message he wants is being sent.
This may not completely shut out all
the other messages that the towers
are getting, out It dea0enS them and
sharpenS the tone of the message tnat
is wanted It is more or less like a
rOOmful Of people all talking at once,
a a
speaker can largely ignore the general
buzz of conversation.
Works Half Capacity Only.
That is the situation at the big sta
ton now. The plant is working at only
half capacity and there is a multitude
of details that would interest only the
wireless expert What the visitor sees
is merely a big power house where dy-
namOs and generators Whir with
deafening noise and where the pulling
of a switch on the big marble switch
board makes sparks explode in unex-
pected quarters.
The station now is not generating its
own current but is taking it from the
Washington street current This is not
the right variety Of current for use,
ana there are conVerterS and trans
formers and all sorts of things in the
big switchboard, so that a current can
be switched around through a lot Of diff
ferent machines and adapted to differ
ent uses. Another current will be taken
from one OF the Virginia companies
soon, and a gasoline engine In the
building viii manufacture direct cur
rent. There are also strange batteries
where the Juice can be bottled up
Whnn not in use.
The plant is not only a sending and
receiving station, but ultimately sill
be equipped for laboratory work, so
that instruments can be tested and re-
search work carried on. When all of
the switchboard is equipped it will be
possible to SHIFT any variety of the sew
eral currents to any part Of the build
ing where 1t is wanted for any purpose.
Inside the sound proof room the
operators are isolated from the outside
world as though they were perched
on the apex of the north pole. Outside
their room there is a little office with
telegraph and telephone Instruments
and this is connected with the operating
room by a telautOgraph wire, so that If
q message is caught that needs to be
relayed to the navy department or any
where else, it can be soaked through
the thick walls by the telautograph
and copied on a special typewriter. This
machine makes four copies of the mes
sage, three of which can be torn off
and used as required, while the fourth
drops into a locked drawer to which
the only key is in the pocket of Lieut.
WOOdfOrd who is in charge of the sta
fiOD-