Makch 27, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



463 



of astronomy at Wesleyan University, Middle- 

 town, Conn., and will assume Lis new duties 

 in the autumn. A new observatory will be 

 erected immediately as a memorial to the late 

 Professor Van Vleck, for many years in 

 charge of that department at Wesleyan. 



Dr. William C. Alpees, formerly a trustee 

 of the College of Pharmacy of Columbia Uni- 

 versity, has been appointed dean and professor 

 of pharmacy of the pharmaceutical depart- 

 ment of Western Eeserve University. 



Mr. Egbert N. Hott, '09, has been ap- 

 pointed by the corporation of the Massachu- 

 setts Institute of Technology special lecturer 

 on public health administration. 



Me. Seaecy B. Slack, B.S., Georgia, '11; 

 A.M., Harvard, '12, has been appointed ad- 

 junct professor of civil engineering and road 

 expert at the University of Georgia. 



Peofessor Burton H. Camp, who has been 

 associate professor of mathematics at Wes- 

 leyan University, has been advanced to a full 

 professorship. 



De. Ellis M. Frost, instructor in clinical 

 medicine and microscopic anatomy in the 

 School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, 

 has been appointed to the position of director 

 of the department of health of the university. 



DISCUSSION AND COBBESPONDENCE 



SMALL AERIALS AND THE STRENGTH OP WIRELESS 

 SIGNALS 



Few persons realize the ease with which 

 wireless signals, such as are sent from the 

 Navy station at Arlington, Va., and Sayville, 

 Long Island, may be intercepted and read, even 

 ■when one is some distance from the sending 

 station. 



In connection with some experiments on the 

 effect of foliage, humidity, etc., on the 

 strength of the wireless signals sent from the 

 government station at Arlington, the writer 

 was impressed by the large amount of power 

 intercepted by an aerial erected on the uni- 

 versity campus and an attempt was made to 

 see if these signals could be read with a much 

 less pretentious aerial. During the writer's 



summer vacation spent near Morgantown, W. 

 Va., on the banks of the Monongahela River, 

 a T aerial consisting of two No. 18 wires, 100 

 feet long, was stretched up between two trees 

 on the side of a hill at the back of the camp. 

 This aerial was approximately 30 feet high 

 and 50 feet from the top of the hill. There 

 were quite a few trees in the neighborhood of 

 the aerial and in most cases they extended 

 well above the highest point of the aerial. Some 

 difficulty was met with in trying to find a sat- 

 isfactory ground connection, but as soon as 

 that was secured the " time signals " could be 

 heard very clearly even in the brightest sun- 

 shine and on the warmest days of last August. 



Upon the writer's return to Morgantown he 

 found that not only the " time signals " from 

 Arlington but the Sayville Long Island press 

 dispatches could be heard with a T aerial con- 

 sisting of three No. 18 wires, 30 feet long, 

 fastened to the rafters in the attic of his resi- 

 dence. Later experiments showed that both 

 these signals could not only be heard, but 

 were loud enough to be read by using an ordi- 

 nary iron bed with a wire soldered to the mid- 

 dle of one side for the aerial. The bed was 

 located on the second floor of the house and 

 was about 12 feet above the level of the street. 



The receiving apparatus consisted of a Navy 

 type of loose-coupled receiving transformer, a 

 variable condenser, a silicon detector used 

 without batteries and 1,000-ohm telephone re- 

 ceivers. A gas pipe leading to a gas stove in 

 the room served as the ground line. 



Morgantown is 162.3 miles from Arlington, 

 Va., and 374.6 miles from Sayville, Long Is- 

 land, with both the Blue Eidge and the Alle- 

 gheny Mountains between. The peaks of some 

 of these mountains rise as high as 2,200 feet 

 above the top of the writer's residence and 

 for the most part are covered with forests. In 

 view of the distance from the sending stations 

 and the mountainous character of the country 

 over which these signals are transmitted the 

 results obtained with these low and smaU 

 aerials seem to warrant this brief description. 

 C. W. Waggoner 



West Virginia Univeksitt, 



MOKGANTOWN, WEST VlEGINLi 



