The Radio Boys at Mountain Pass: or, The Midnight Call for Assistance

CHAPTER XI – A MOUNTAIN RADIO STATION

Left to themselves, the boys looked at one another.

“That’s what I call quick work,” remarked Joe. “I hate to let the old set go, but they say you should never mix sentiment with business.”

“Maybe this will lessen your grief,” said Bob. “Eighty divided by four makes twenty, or at least that’s what they always taught us in school. Take these four five-dollar bills, Joe, and dry your tears with them.”

“Oh, boy!” exclaimed Joe.

“Money, how welcome you are!” ejaculated Herb, as he pocketed his share. “What I can’t do with twenty dollars!”

“That will buy exactly two thousand doughnuts,” calculated Jimmy, a rapturous expression on his round countenance. “Hot doughnuts, crisp brown doughnuts, doughnuts with jelly in them, doughnuts – ”

A human avalanche precipitated itself on the corpulent youngster, and he found himself writhing on the floor with his three companions seated comfortably on different parts of his ample anatomy.

“Hey! Quit, quit!” stuttered Jimmy. “Get off me, you hobos! You’ll have me flattened out like a dog that’s just been run over by a steam roller.”

“And serve you right, too,” retorted Joe. “What do you mean by talking about doughnuts when it’s almost dinner time, and we’re starved to death, anyway. Besides, you know there isn’t a place at Mountain Pass where we can buy them.”

“Yes, and if I’d known that before I started, I would probably have stayed at home,” retorted Jimmy. “Get off me, will you, before I throw you off?”

“We’ll let you up, but I doubt if you should be trusted with all that money,” returned Bob, grinning. “You’d better whack it up among us, Jimmy. You’ll just buy a lot of junk with it and make yourself sick.”

“Well, I’ve got a right to get sick if I want to,” said his rotund friend, struggling to his feet. “If you get that twenty away from me, it will have to be over my dead body.”

“It doesn’t seem worth while to kill him for just twenty dollars,” said Bob, pretending to consider. “That’s just a little over six dollars apiece.”

“No good,” said Joe, decisively. “It would cost more than that to bury him.”

“You’re a cold-blooded set of bandits,” complained Jimmy, in an aggrieved tone. “I’m glad I haven’t got a hundred dollars with me. I’d be a mighty poor insurance risk then, I suppose.”

“I wouldn’t give a lead nickel for your chances,” said Bob. “But don’t let that worry you, Jimmy. You’ll probably never have that much money all at one time as long as you live.”

“I won’t if I wait for you fellows to give it to me,” admitted his friend. “But I’m going over to the hotel and see if dinner is served yet. I’m not going to be the last one in the dining room at every meal.”

“When you get the hang of this place, you’ll always be the first one,” said Herb. “After a little while they’ll make you up a bunk in a corner, and you can even sleep there.”

“Oh, go chase yourself!” exclaimed Jimmy. “You never learned how to eat, Herb, and that’s why you’re such a human bean pole,” and with this parting shot he slammed the door behind him before Herb could think of a suitable reply.

“He got you that time, Herb,” said Bob, with a grin. “I guess we might as well all get ready for dinner. Dad says they hate to have people coming in late.”

Every day after that Mr. Robins dropped in in time to hear the market reports, sometimes alone, and at others accompanied by his partner, Mr. Blackford. The latter was not quite so enthusiastic as his colleague, but he was nevertheless greatly interested, and was always glad to don a head set and hear what was going on.

True to their agreement, the boys instructed the new owner of the set how to adjust it and get the best results. He always paid the closest attention to what they told him, and in a few days could pick up signals and tune the set fairly well.

“Not bad for an old fellow, eh?” he exclaimed delightedly one day, when he had accomplished the whole thing without any aid from the boys. “If Blackford and I sell out to your father, Bob, I’ll have a little leisure time, and blame it all if I don’t think I’ll do some experimenting and possibly some building myself.”

“You’re pretty badly bitten by the radio bug,” observed his partner.

“I won’t try to deny it,” said the other, emphatically. “The more I think about it, the more wonderful it seems. Besides, it’s got a mighty practical side to it. I was holding on to some shares a few days ago until I learned by way of the radio that they were starting to fall. I sent a telegram to my brokers, they sold out for me just in the nick of time, and I made a profit on the deal instead of having to take a loss. The bottom dropped clean out of the market that same afternoon, and if I’d been holding on to those shares, I would have gotten bumped good and hard.”

The other nodded. “It’s a good investment when you look at it that way,” he admitted.

“Good investment is right,” declared his partner. “I saved a lot more in that deal than the whole radio outfit cost me, and I still own the set.”

“I wonder why the new government wireless station doesn’t do something of the kind,” remarked Mr. Blackford. “They might as well make themselves useful as well as ornamental.”

“Government station!” exclaimed Bob and Joe at once. “Is there a government station at Mountain Pass?”

Mr. Blackford nodded. “I thought you fellows knew about it, or I’d have mentioned it before,” he said. “It was just opened a few weeks ago, and I don’t think they’ve got all their equipment in yet. There’s been some delay in getting the stuff here, I understand.”

“What does the government want of a wireless station away up here?” asked Bob.

“This is the highest point in all the surrounding country and makes an ideal lookout for forest fires,” said his informant. “The station was supposed to be ready for use last summer, but, as I say, was delayed a good deal. But we expect it to be of great service in the future. There have been some disastrous forest fires around here in the last few years, as you probably know.”

“We ought, to know it,” remarked Joe. “The smoke has been so thick as far away as Clintonia sometimes that you could cut it with a hatchet. It’s about time something was done to stop it.”

Of course, once they heard about the government station, the boys could think of nothing else until they had visited it. Bob proposed that they go right after lunch, and this met with the enthusiastic approval of his friends. Poor Jimmy was so rushed by his eager friends that he was frustrated in his design of asking for a second helping of chocolate pudding, and was hurried away protesting vainly against such unseemly haste.

“What do you Indians think you’re doing?” he grumbled. “Do you all want to die of indigestion? Don’t you know you’re supposed to rest after a meal and give your stomach a chance?”

“Oh, dry up,” said Joe, heartlessly. “If you didn’t eat so much you wouldn’t want to lie around for two hours after every meal like a Brazilian anaconda. You know you didn’t want another plate of that pudding, anyway.”

“Didn’t I!” said Jimmy, disconsolately. “That was about the best pudding I ever tasted, bar none. You fellows are such radio bugs that you can’t even pay proper attention to what you’re eating.”

“You give enough attention to that to make up for the whole gang,” said Bob. “Stop your growling and step along lively, old timer.”

Jimmy grumbled a little more in spite of this admonition, but regained his usual cheery mood when he saw the steel lattice-work towers with the familiar antenna sweeping in graceful spans between them, and forgot all about the missing plate of pudding.

The station was situated some distance from the Mountain Rest Hotel in a clearing cut out of the dense pine woods, and the boys ceased to wonder why they had not discovered it on some of their rambles. As they drew near they could see that everything was solidly and substantially built, as is usually the case with government work.

The station, besides the towers, comprised a large, comfortable building, which housed all the sending and receiving equipment, and a smaller building, in which the operators slept when off duty, and where spare equipment was stored.

The radio boys knocked at the door of the larger building, and after a short wait it was opened by a tall, rather frail looking young fellow, who eyed them inquiringly.

Bob explained that he and his friends were radio fans, and were anxious to look over the station, if it would not cause too much inconvenience.

“Not a bit of it,” said the young operator, heartily. “To tell you the truth, there is not much doing here at this time of year, and company is mighty welcome. Step in and I’ll be glad to show you around the place.”

CHAPTER XII – THE MARVELOUS SCIENCE

Inside of half an hour the boys were on a friendly footing with the young operator and felt as though they had known him a long time. He was only a few years older than themselves, and had been a full-fledged operator for about six months. The Mountain Pass station was his first assignment, and he was inordinately proud of the complicated apparatus that went to compose it.

“This is some little station that Uncle Sam has rigged up here, and while there are plenty of bigger ones, there are very few that are more complete and up to date. Look at this three unit generator set, for instance. Compact, neat, and efficient, as you can easily see. It doesn’t take up much room, but it can do a whole lot.”

“It does look as though it were built for business,” admitted Bob. “I suppose that unit in the center is the driving motor, isn’t it?”

“Right,” said the other. “And the one nearest you is a two thousand volt generator for supplying the plate circuit. The one at the other end is a double current generator. That supplies direct current at one hundred and twenty-five volts and four amps for the exciter circuit, and alternating current at eighty-eight volts and ten amps for feeding that twelve volt filament heating transformer that you see over there in the corner.”

“Pretty neat, I’ll say,” remarked Joe.

“I think so,” said the other, and continued to point out the salient and interesting features of the equipment. “Over here, you see, is our main instrument panel. These dials over here control the variable condensers, and the other ones control the variometers. But there!” he exclaimed, catching himself up short. “I suppose none of you ever heard of such things before, did you?”

The radio boys looked at each other, and could not help laughing.

“We’ve got a faint idea what they are, anyway,” chuckled Bob. “We’ve made enough of them to be on speaking terms, I should say.”

“Made them!” exclaimed the other, surprised in his turn.

“Sure thing,” grinned Bob. “We’ve made crystal detector sets and vacuum tube sets, and – ”

“And other sets that we never knew just how to describe,” interrupted the irrepressible Herb, with a laugh.

“Yes, that kind too,” admitted Bob, with a grin. “But, anyway, we’ve made enough to know the difference between a variometer and a condenser.”

“Well, I didn’t know I was talking to old hands at the game,” said the operator. “I suppose I might have known that you wouldn’t take that long walk out here through the snow unless you were pretty well interested in radio.”

“Yes, we’re dyed-in-the-wool fans,” admitted Bob, and told the operator something of their radio work.

“I’m mighty glad to know that you fellows do understand the subject,” said the operator, when Bob had finished. “I’m so enthusiastic about it myself, that it is a real pleasure to have somebody to talk to that knows what I’m talking about. So many of the people who come here seem to be natural born dumb-bells – at least, on the subject of radio.”

“Such as you took us for at first, eh?” asked Jimmy, with a grin.

“I apologize for that,” said the other, frankly. “Please don’t hold it against me.”

“Personally, I don’t blame you a bit,” said Bob. “We can’t expect you to be a mind reader.”

“Well, then, that’s settled; so let’s look at the rest of the station,” said the operator, whose name was Bert Thompson. “This is our transmitter panel over here. It is very compact, as you can see for yourselves.”

He opened two doors at the front, one at the bottom, and raised the cover, thus exposing most of the interior mechanism to view.

“Here are all the fuse blocks down at the bottom, you see,” Thompson continued. “The various switches are conveniently arranged where you can easily get at them while you are sitting in front of the panel. Then up here are the microphones, with their coils and wiring where you can easily get at them for inspection or repairs. Rather a neat lay-out, don’t you think?”

“No doubt of it!” exclaimed Bob, admiringly. “We’ve never made a CW transmitting set yet, but we hope to some day. A set like this would cost a pile of money, even if you made it yourself.”

“Rather so,” admitted the young operator. “It takes a rich old fellow like Uncle Sam to pony up for a set like that.”

“We’re more interested in receiving sets just at present,” said Joe. “Let’s take a look at that end of the outfit.”

“Anything you like,” said Thompson, readily. “That panel is located on this side of the room.”

“I suppose you use a regenerative circuit, don’t you?” asked Bob.

“Oh, yes,” answered the other. “That helps out a lot in increasing the strength of the incoming sounds.”

“I suppose you use a tickler coil in the plate circuit, don’t you?” ventured Joe.

“No, in this set we use a variometer in the plate circuit instead,” said Thompson.

“Speaking of regenerative circuits, have you heard about Armstrong’s new invention?” asked Bob.

The operator shook his head. “Can’t say that I have,” he said. “It must be something very recent, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I believe it is,” said Bob. “I read about it the other day in one of the latest radio magazines.”

“Do you remember how it worked?” asked Thompson, eagerly. “I wish you’d tell me about it, if you do.”

“I’ll do my best,” promised Bob. “The main idea seems to be to make one tube do as much as three tubes did before. Armstrong found that the limit of amplification had been reached when the negative charge in the tube approaches the positive charge. By experimenting he found that it was possible to increase the negative charge temporarily, for something like one twenty-thousandth of a second, I think it was. This is far above the positive for that tiny fraction of a second, and yet the average negative charge is lower. It is this increase that makes the enormous amplification possible, and lets the operator discard two vacuum tubes.”

“Sounds good,” said Thompson. “Do you suppose you could draw me a rough sketch of the circuit?”

“Let’s have a pencil and some paper, and I’ll make a try at it,” said Bob. “I doped it out at the time, but likely I’ve forgotten it since then.”

Nevertheless, with the friendly aid of the eraser on the end of the pencil, he sketched a circuit that the experienced professional had no difficulty in understanding.

“You see,” explained Bob, “with this hook up you use the regular Armstrong regenerative circuit, with the second tube connected so that it acts as an automatic switch, cutting in or out a few turns of the secondary coil. The plate circuit of the second tube is connected to the plate of the detector tube through both capacity and inductance.”

“I get you,” nodded the operator. “According to your sketch the plate and grid of the second tube are coupled inductively, causing variation in the positive resistance of the tuned circuit.”

“That’s the idea exactly,” agreed Bob. “You see, this is done by means of the oscillating tube, the grid circuit being connected through the tuned circuit of the amplifying tube.”

“Say, that looks pretty good to me!” exclaimed Thompson. “I wonder how Armstrong ever came to dope that out. I’ve been trying to get something of the kind for a long time, but I never seemed to get quite the right combination.”

“Well, better luck next time,” said Bob, sympathetically. “There are a lot of people working at radio problems, and it seems to be a pretty close race between the inventors. Something new is being discovered almost every day.”

“If you fellows are building sets, you’re just as likely to make some important discovery as anybody else,” said Thompson. “That super-regenerative circuit is a corker, though. I’m going to keep that sketch you made, if you don’t mind, and see if I can make a small set along those lines. I have lots of spare time just at present.”

“It will repay you for your trouble, all right,” remarked Joe. “We’re figuring on doing the same thing when we get back home.”

Jimmy had tried faithfully to follow the technicalities of the recent conversation, but his was an easy-going nature, disinclined to delve deeply into the intricate mysteries of science. Herbert was somewhat the same way, and they two wandered about the station, laughing and joking, while Bob and Joe and the young wireless man argued the merits of different equipments and hook-ups.

“Say!” exclaimed Jimmy, at length, “I hate to break up the party, but don’t you think it’s about time that we thought of getting back to the hotel? Remember we’ve got a long way to go, and it’s four-thirty already.”

“Gee!” said Bob, glancing in surprise at his watch. “I guess Jimmy is right for once in his life. We’ll have to hustle along now, but we’ll drop in here often while we are at Mountain Pass – unless you put up a ‘no admittance’ sign.”

“No danger of that,” laughed the other. “The oftener you come, the better I’ll like it. This is a lonely place, as you can see for yourselves.”

The radio boys shook hands with Bert Thompson, and after thanking him for the trouble he had taken to show them the station, they started back for the hotel at a brisk pace.

The days were growing very short, and it was after dark when they reached the hotel. Very warm and comfortable it looked as they approached it, windows lighted and throwing cheerful beams over the white snow outside. A red glow filled the windows of the living room, and the boys knew that a big wood fire was roaring and crackling in the big fireplace. As they drew close, a tempting aroma of cookery reached them, and caused them to hasten their steps.

They had barely time to get freshened up before the dinner bell rang, and in a short time they were making havoc with as fine a meal as any of them ever tasted.

When they told about their visit to the radio station, Edna and Ruth Salper, the daughters of the Wall Street broker they had met in the snowstorm, were among the most interested of the listeners.

“We find it so dull over at our house we are glad to come over here for meals and to visit,” said Ruth Salper.

“I suppose being in the woods in winter is rather dull,” returned Joe, politely.

“Did you boys really know enough about radio to talk all afternoon with the man in charge of the government station?” inquired Edna, curiously.

“Why not?” asked Bob. “Don’t you think radio is a broad enough subject to talk about for an entire afternoon?”

“Oh, I suppose it is,” she admitted. “But why don’t you share some of your fun with us?”

CHAPTER XIII – PRESSED INTO SERVICE

“Just what do you mean?” asked Bob. “Do you want to talk radio with us all tomorrow afternoon?” he went on, with an irritating grin.

“No, of course I don’t, stupid,” she exclaimed. “But why can’t you bring your old wireless things into the hotel parlor and let us all hear some music? We’d be ever so grateful if you would.”

The radio boys looked doubtfully at each other.

“We’d do it, fast enough,” said Bob. “But we didn’t bring a loud speaker with us, and without that nobody could hear much unless he had a set of telephone receivers.”

“Oh, dear!” she exclaimed. “I just knew you’d make some excuse or other.”

“A loud speaker is something that looks like an old-fashioned phonograph horn, isn’t it?” asked Ruth, the younger sister, before any of the radio boys could refute the older girl’s accusation.

“Well, yes, it looks like that; but the details are different,” replied Bob.

“Yes, but if you had a phonograph horn, couldn’t you fix it up so that the music would be loud enough for us all to hear it?” persisted Ruth.

“Good for you, Ruth!” exclaimed her sister. “I know what you mean. You’re thinking of that old phonograph they used to have in this hotel, before they got the big new cabinet machine.”

“If Edna and I get that horn for you, it will be easy for such experts as you boys are to make a – a what-you-may-call-it – loud speaker – out of it, won’t it?” asked Ruth, demurely.

“I think they’re kidding us now, Bob,” said Joe, grinning. “When a girl tells you you’re an expert, you can bet she’s figuring to wish something on you.”

“Yes, but it’s so unusual that we ought to do something to encourage it,” laughed Bob. “Let’s call their bluff. Probably they’ll never be able to find a horn, anyway.”

“Don’t count too much on that,” said Edna, with a dangerous smile. “We almost always get what we ask for.”

“Yes, and you are everlastingly asking for something, it seems to me,” grumbled her father, who had joined the little group at that moment.

“Now, Daddy, you know you love to give us things,” chided Ruth. “If we suddenly had everything we wanted, you’d be dreadfully disappointed.”

“There’s no danger of that happening,” said her father, a smile softening his grim face. “But what is it you’re after just at present?”

“We want that big phonograph horn they used to have here in the hotel,” said Edna, with a provoking side glance at the radio boys. “Will you ask the manager to hunt it up and lend it to us?”

“I’ll see what I can do about it,” promised Mr. Salper. “I remember the horn you mean, but it was probably thrown away long ago.”

The radio boys rather wished that this might prove to be the case, but they were not destined to get off so easily. The first thing they saw when they entered the dining room the next morning was a large wooden horn, of a style in universal use in the early years of the phonograph, standing prominently near their table.

“There, now!” exclaimed Jimmy, in a low voice. “You see what you’ve let us in for, Bob. Why didn’t you tell them that we didn’t have time to waste building a loud speaker, and settle the thing right then and there.”

“That’s easier said than done,” answered Bob. “Why don’t you go over to the Salper’s house and tell the girls that?”

“Yes, go right over and be rough with them,” advised Joe. “Tell them that you’re not afraid of girls, and they can’t put anything over on you.”

“Aw, I would have, last night; but it’s too late now,” said Jimmy, lamely.

“Yes, you would!” jeered Herb. “After all, it won’t be so much work. You’re an expert carpenter, Jimmy, and can make a bang-up job of it.”

“That’s always the way,” complained Jimmy, heaving a dismal sigh. “You fellows think up a good, hard job, and then I do the work. I’ve never known it to fail yet.”

“Buck up, Doughnuts,” said Bob. “Think of how the girls will thank you for it. You’ll be the most popular fellow in the hotel.”

“Like fun I will!” returned the fat boy. “But I’m not going to let it interfere with my appetite. I can see where I’ve got a hard day ahead of me.”

It proved to be a busy morning for all the radio boys. Immediately after breakfast they fell to work on the horn, and after some three hours of steady labor they had constructed a passable loud-speaking horn, using one telephone receiver clamped securely at the narrow end. They mounted the whole thing on a solid wooden pedestal, leaving two substantial shelves at the back to hold their radio apparatus.

It did not take them long to mount the receiving outfit in a neat manner, and when this was done they all drew a long breath and sat down to admire the result of their labors. While still engaged in this gratifying occupation, Edna and Ruth Salper entered.

“Oh!” exclaimed the former, with a gesture of delight, “doesn’t it look simply beautiful? I never thought you boys could make it so quickly.”

“You’ve got Jimmy to thank for that,” said Bob. “I never saw him work so hard in his life before. It was easy to see that he was thinking of you and Ruth all the time, from the way he put his heart into it.”

“I didn’t anything of the kind,” said the embarrassed Jimmy. “I never thought of them once, even.”

“What a dreadful thing to say,” laughed Ruth. “I didn’t know you hated girls, Jimmy.”

“Who said I hated ’em?” demanded Jimmy, getting as red as a beet. “I – I – ”

“Love them,” Joe finished for him. “Is that what you are trying to say, Jimmy?”

“Say, who asked you to butt in?” inquired Jimmy, desperately. “Everybody is trying to tell me what I mean, until I don’t know which is right myself.”

“Never mind,” said Edna, coming to the rescue of the floundering youth. “We are grateful to you for working so hard for us, anyway.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” mumbled Jimmy. “If it works all right, we won’t worry about the labor we put into it.”

“But don’t you expect it to work?” asked Edna, teasingly.

“Sure it will work,” asserted Bob, before Jimmy could involve himself again. “That is, you’ll hear music, all right, but it probably won’t be very loud, even with the help of the horn. We’re a long way from the broadcasting station, you know. If we were within ten or fifteen miles of it, I’d say surely that it would be a success.”

“I’ll go and get the loop aerial, Bob, and we can test it right now,” suggested Joe. “What do you think?”

Bob nodded, and Joe left the room, returning a few minutes later with the loop. This was soon connected with the set, and then Bob began tuning for signals.

“Mercy! what was that?” exclaimed Edna, while Ruth gave a little scream.

From the horn came an ear-piercing howl, followed by whistles and weird unearthly shrieks. But the boys only laughed heartily at the girls.

“That’s nothing but old man static,” said Bob. “We’ll soon get him off the wires.”

“Does he live near here?” asked Ruth, innocently.

“Wow!” shouted Herb, and the boys could not help laughing, although they stopped as soon as they saw the mystified and somewhat hurt expression in the girl’s eyes.

“That was just Bob’s slangy way of talking,” explained Joe, after he was sure that he had regained control of his features. “Static is the electricity that is always in the air, and gives us radio fans a good deal of trouble.”

“Oh, I see,” said Ruth, and she was a good enough sport to laugh at her own mistake.

Meantime Bob had finally got the set tuned to the proper wave length, and the little group were all delighted with the clarity and volume of the resultant sounds. They were not nearly as loud as an ordinary phonograph, but were sufficient to be heard distinctly in a fairly large room.

“It’s too bad we only have a one-stage amplifier,” said Bob. “If we only had another transformer and vacuum tube, we’d have a loud speaker that you could hear all over the hotel.”

“I think this one is plenty good enough,” asserted Edna.

Both she and her sister were as excited as children with a new toy, and they were both delighted with the music.

“You boys will have to bring this wonderful thing into the parlor tonight, and let everybody hear it,” coaxed Edna. “I know they will all be tickled to death to hear a concert in this new way.”

“They might not be as enthusiastic as you think,” said Bob, doubtfully. “Maybe they’d rather just talk, and wouldn’t thank us for interrupting them.”

“What an idea!” exclaimed Ruth. “Just try it once, just to please us, and you’ll soon find out whether they like it or not.”

“Well, if it’s to please you, we’ll certainly do that thing!” Bob gallantly remarked, and was rewarded by a friendly smile.

“Edna and I will speak to the manager about it this afternoon, and I know it will be all right,” she said. “We’ll tell you what he says at supper time.”

The radio boys, although they were radio enthusiasts themselves, did not actually realize how deeply interested people had become in this new and wonderful science. They were somewhat surprised, therefore, when the manager sought them out that afternoon and told them that he would be more than delighted to have them give a radio concert that evening.