The mirror., 1923-08-23

at Annapolis who immediately throws a
transmitter and the operator sends out
signal for the ships to GO ahead"-al in
the" fraction of time it takes the man on
the ship to finish calling Annapolis. The
ships operator Shoots the message; it
is picked up at Bar Harbor and relayed
to Annapolis where it is transmitted to
Nauen and thence relayed by line tele-
graph to Berlin.
If the station at Nauen is carry
ing on communication with another
station, say Carnorvan, the receiving oper-
ator on the Annapolis "circuit" gives a
high bal' to the operator in the Carnor-
van booth and he breaks his message long
enough to pass "shoot" signal to An
napolis. The receiving operator copies the
message and as soon as he receives it all
the transmitting operator "breaks" his
message to give Annapolis the "received"
signal.
There are also "high speed circuits"
where all transmitting and receiving is
done automatically. During the day when
"Night Letters" are accumulating, staff
of operators punch them out on the trans
hitting tape and at the sceduled hour at
night the automatic transmitter is cut in
and slips out the messages one after an
other at between seventy-fve and ninety
words minute. They are received auto
matcaly and run off on a dictograph
later on and copied on blanks. 1t is pos
sible to send at the rate of 200 words a
minute, automatically transmitting and
receiving at both ends which is now the
practice at the Radio Corporations station
at Riverhead, L. l., though the speed there
averages seventy-fve words minute.
Operators are expected to "get' every
thing sent to them. One night during the
war the receiving supervisor at Bar Har-
Dor strolled into one of the booths with a
receiver under his arm, gave sign to
the operator who was copying long mes
sage from "LCM," the Norwegian sta
ton, and jerked the wire-connections from
one set and put them on the other. The
operator missed complete word during
that time and although it was not his
fault he had to write letter of explana-
ton to the commanding officer telling all
about how it happened.
The operators are not allowed to use
any unnecessary signals but queer things
happen. "Two little dots can mean lots'
is the radio mans saying and it is true
indeed. For instance; one night back in
1918 the "Mauretania" was coming in and
she always had messages for Annapolis
and in those days Bar Harbor and An
napolis were two distinct stations. 1t was
the custom of the operator at the latter
station to send two dots certain way
instead of the regular procedure to let the
"Mauretania" know when to 90 ahead
This hight, as on most nights, the whole
western world was listening for her first
call and many were the chuckles in North
and South America among the operators
that night. Bar Harbor had an operator
who was up to tricks all the time and he
was 'laying' for the operator at Annapo-
lis
No sooner had the "Mauretania" let
out her call than Bar Harbor snapped
out the two dots Annapolis was supposed
to send. He just beat Annapolis to it by
the fraction of second and when the
latter heard his pet signal go out from
another station he came down on his key
with an astonished "Blaa!" Then for
second all was STILL but the joke was out
and away over San Diego way two little
peeps came out-one could almost distin-
guish the chuckle in them and New Bruins
wick followed right after while old "NZ
r" down at Ell -Coyey let out four dots
and dash, snappy and quick, which is
the signal for "the horse laugh" followed
by two "S's" which meant as much as if