Radio Broadcast (May-Oct 1922)

68 RADIO BROADCAST -transmission from the boat was 380 metres; the shore station used a 675-metre wave length. The receiving equipment included an amplifier, using three stages of radio-frequency amplification, and two stages of audio frequency amplification, and was specially designed for the wave length used. The apparatus on the boat was particularly compact. A demonstration was given at Atlantic City. When the boat was six miles from shore, good communication was maintained with the shore station. This distance is considered sufficient for the ordinary needs of the Coast Guard. The test was regarded as very satisfactory, and as a result the Coast Guard is considering the installation of radio telephone equipment at a number of the more important stations. A TROPICAL ISLAND RADIOPHONE Radio Adventures Among the Bahama Islands By CHARLES T. WHITEFIELD LKE most "fans," we hated to abandon our radio receiving telephone when we left home for some mild adven. tures among the Bahamas. So we packed it up with the idea that we could install it on the good ship The Sea Scamp a schooner of 70 feet which we had sent on to Nassau, New Providence, from Miami, where she had spent a comfortable summer getting a new coat of paint and all the troublesome expensive things that yachts require. On the good ship Munargo coming south we had snatches of W J Z, Newark, but the air was jammed with local messages in short waves, and especially troublesome was the radio hog who amused himself by printing his alphabet, calling aloud to Heaven to hear his efforts, and completely blinding much better material. When one leaves cold weather and New York, one's head is stuffed with plans of things to do among the Isles of June; but warm weather is very quieting to the ambitions of even the most energetic, and it seemed a big job to rig up the wires on the schooner; so we postponed this task until later. Now along came Dan Smith, a full fledged radio bug. Radio was the very breath of his nostrils, and his conversation was so full of strange technical words that one felt instantly that here, indeed, was a man who could reach out into the ether and take from it what he willed. Newark, Washington, Pittsburgh, which had seemed to us so far away, he said would "come roaring in" if we gave them a chance, and, besides, he would do all the work. Nassau, the metropolis of the Bahama Islands, is crowned by a hill, and on the top of it lives a very kind friend to whom we had talked much of radio, somewhat to his incredulity. Here was the ideal place to string the wires to Heaven, and the regulation that any one operating radio in these Islands must pay a fee of 5 shillings a year did not seem an insurmountable objection. The idea that one could listen in Nassau to a concert being performed in Newark, N. J., and East Pittsburgh, Pa., seemed to our friends what they called a quaint piece of imagination. However, they put the island carpenters at work, and in a few hours the enterprising Dan Smith had the wires stretching over the roof of Government House. In the daytime in Nassau one can do little with radio — the static is so bad — but the work was finished by evening and our friends sat about curious to see if this box of magic would do anything wonderful. The final wires were connected — the anxious moment had arrived — and produced — not a sound. A heart-breaking pause. Perhaps the wires were on the wrong poles of the battery. They were. A violent hum developed, and in a minute a clear voice was heard talking at Miami, and then Newark and Pittsburgh. Our Nassau friends were now convinced that we were not liars, and so began our experiments in the Bahama Islands. The natives here are soft-spoken, well ordered black people with some ambition and real charm. One quality which very much amused us in the Out Island was their implicit