How to Become a Wireless Operator 



I. — Why Wireless is Interesting 

 By T. M. Lewis 



NOBODY knows just how many 

 amateur wireless operators and 

 experimenters there are in the 

 United States; the total number has 

 been estimated as somewhere between 

 twenty thousand and fifty thousand. 

 Nearly ten thousand licenses for amateur 

 stations have been issued by the De- 

 partment of Commerce. Each one of 

 these licenses is for an amateur station 

 which contains both a transmitter and 

 a receiver. No license is required for 

 stations equipped for receiving only, 

 and it is believed that there are many 

 more of these than of the sending 

 stations. 



Why have so many American boys 

 and young men taken up this subject? 

 What is there about it that interests 

 them, and induces them to spend their 

 time and money in buying, building and 

 using wireless instruments? The answer 

 to these questions is simply that wireless 

 or radio telegraphy represents one of the 

 latest developments of electrical science, 

 and that it offers both amusement and 

 profit to whoever 

 cares to work upon 

 its problems. 



Whether you 

 wish merely to 

 make a pastime of 

 wireless experi- 

 menting or desire 

 to study radio tel- 

 egraphy with the 

 intention of mak- 

 ing some part of it 

 your profession, 

 you will find time 

 spent on it well 

 worth your efforts. 

 In the first instance you will be able to 

 receive messages through the ether from 

 stations many miles away, getting press 

 reports of important news items, and the 

 results of races and ball games and so 

 forth, before they are published in local 

 papers. In the second case, you will be 



BATTERIES 



Fig. 1. A Complete Wireless Set Which 

 Is Capable of Sending Messages 



able to train yourself as a radio operator 

 or installation engineer, or possifily you 

 will make new inventions or discoveries 

 of commercial value. Either way you 

 will constantly be learning more and 

 more about electricity and its applica- 

 tions, as well as getting a better knowl- 

 edge of many important physical prin- 

 ciples which may be used in almost any 

 kind of work. 



In addition to all this, there lies before 

 you the fascination of sitting at your 

 receiving instruments and listening to 

 wireless messages from stations located 

 all about you. Soon after you begin it 

 is possible to hear from distances of 

 several hundred miles, and after you 

 have gained a thorough knowledge of 

 your instruments and their possibilities 

 it becomes feasible to listen to the tre- 

 mendously powerful transmitters even 

 so far away as Germany and the 

 Hawaiian Islands. 



Elementary Principles 



This article is the first of a series 

 which will describe 

 a number of really 

 practical and use- 

 ful instruments for 

 use in radio teleg- 

 raphy, both for 

 sending and for re- 

 ceiving. The ways 

 to make and use 

 these various pieces 

 of apparatus will 

 be discussed in de- 

 tail, but it is not 

 proposed to go into 

 the theory of wire- 

 less telegraphy at 



all. By going to your library you will 

 be able to find books and periodicals 

 which describe the principles of ether- 

 waves and their uses in wireless; some 

 of the books you will wish to bu>' and 

 have in your own workshop for ready 

 reference. Among the most interesting 



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