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The March of Radio
461
covery of Hewitt's as he makes this statement unequivocally. Evidently Hewitt did not appreciate the importance of his discovery or he would have covered his priority with letters patent, as he did so many other ideas arising from his experimental work.
On this basis, then, it appears that De Forest gets credit for an idea really first discovered by Hewitt and it seems strange that, in a similar way, Armstrong gets credit for discovering that an audion would oscillate, as it undoubtedly had done for De Forest many times, without his realization of the importance of the action.
We remember some early experiments of De Forest's in which he was trying to his audion as a
THE LATE PETER COOPER HEWITT
show the applicability of telephone repeater, and some of the audions squealed when connected to the repeating circuits. Undoubtedly the squealing tubes, which . were classed at the time as defective, were oscillating. The inventor of the audion had brought about the proper conditions for setting the tube into oscillation and had produced the oscillations, but without realizing it. So as Hewitt approached the discovery of the three-electrode tube, and as De Forest approached the discovery of the oscillating tube, so many times may we be close to an important discovery, yet fate lets us pass it by and we go on to oblivion instead of fame.
THE LIGHTING WIRE AS AN ANTENNA
MUCH has been said lately about the bother of the outdoor antenna, and many owners of radio receivers, especially those in apartment
houses where landlords' rules are obstacles to be overcome, have been only too ready to grasp at a more easily installed substitute. The coil aerial is a bona fide substitute but of course it
requires several stages of amplification before it becomes electrically the equal of the ordinary elevated antenna. When the idea of using the ordinary lighting wires as an antenna was suggested, many were ready to give this new antenna a trial — and a number of these have been sadly disappointed. In many cases not only is the lighting system not so good as an outdoor antenna but it refuses towork at all.
The reason is more or less evident to any one who has an elementary knowledge of radio transmission and when it is noted how lighting wires are installed in a house. In practically no apartment house can the lighting wires be a very efficient antenna, because throughout their whole length, from the lighting company's sub-station to the lamp socket, they are either actually underground or else installed in a grounded iron pipe or metallic casing. Such a wiring system can take comparatively little energy from the advancing radio wave and so can give but little signal. On the other hand dwellers in the suburbs, where the electric wires are installed overhead on poles, may possibly get very strong signals from their lighting system, depending somewhat upon the style of wiring used in the house. If the house wiring is carried in iron pipes or conduits grounded to the water pipes, poor results will generally be obtained. If armored wire is used, such as BX cable, somewhat better signals may be