Saturday news. (Watertown, S.D.) 19??-19??, 1916-03-23

HH..UH-
That Watertcwn has a brace OF
boys who will some day become ex.
pert in wireless telegraphy and tele.
phony seems likely. The lads named
above are greatly interested in the
principles of wireless communication
and they are manifesting originality
IN the matter of equipment.
Charles Sykes first began to ex
hlblt interest in the subject while he
was attending the public schools in
the little town of Fruita, Colorado.
He was barely out of his Gems. He
patched up a temporary equipment
in the bath room of the family resi-
dence, where the father and mother
and brothers and sisters now and
!then tumbled over something or 9th
]er, and every now and then threat
ened to dump the whole outfit into the
back alley-but they never carried
out their threats. Somehow the lad
soon began to show evidences OF
comprehension of the subject, in many
respects, and he was permitted to go
ahead, Notwithstanding the inconyen.
fences sometimes occasioned other
members of the family.
When the family came to Water.
town a couple of years ago, Charles,
then ID, rugged up an outfit in his
bedroom on the second floor. Nearly
everything connected with the wire
less outfit is a patched up" affair
| something that he made out of some.
thing else, putting various parts OF
this and that together and finally
margin o. & tho uhnJn int - r;,o1o.
station. OF course, he has had to re
lily upon "boughten' batteries and a
few minor things, but the main por
ton of his equipment is the result
of his own mechanical and scientific
turn of mind.
Ross Mullin has followed along sim,
liar channels. About everything he
had on hand, until recently, when
he got a new transmitter, or sending
continuance, was made or assembled
by himself.
Ross present equipment is, per.
haps, the most powerful of the three
in the city. 1t is believed that it
will have a range of something like
one hundred miles distant in all di-
r%ections from Watertown.
Charles Halbkat, Jr., another of the
Watertown lads who have evinced I'm
usual interest in wireless matters,
has just had installed in the home
of his parents, Mr.. and Mrs. Chas. f.
Halbkat, a new equipment of modest
proportions, secured through A. A.
Armstrong. In company with his fell
low experimenters, Sykes and Mullin,
he installed the outfit and made the
proper connections last Saturday
evening.
1t was the adaptability of young
Halbkat in ~manifesting comprehen-
sion in the complicated affairs of the
wireless that led his parents to per-
nit the investment in this new and
latest designed equipment. 1t is of
sufficient power to communicate any
where within the corporate limits of
Watertown, which embraces several
square miles of territory.
1t is a condition in the privilege to
use wireless equipments that have a
range outside OF the state III which
they I owned that their owners
and operators shall become allied
with the national association and Sc
cure a license from the federal gov
eminent. In accepting this license,
the owners pledge themselves to CO.
operate with the government in case
of need, such as war or Instruction,
or other dangers--that is to say, they
make a sort of conditional enlistment
in the government service, so that,
in case of necessity, the government
would have the right, not only to their
individual services but also the right
to employ their equipment for the
benefit of the government.
These lads have already applied
for the federal license, and their
friends have reason to feel that these
boys are going to make something
above the ordinary along the princi-
pies of electricity and it's Uses in
wireless Communication.