198 
Vh  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
February  10,  1923 
Questions  About  Wireless  Outfits 
Radio  for  Every  Home 
|  Several  weeks  ago  we  printed  an  ar¬ 
ticle  by  Jesse  W.  Newell  of  Illinois.  It 
described  a  successful  radio  phone  set  for 
home  use.  Our  readers  have  asked  many 
questions  abop.t,  it,  and  several  of  them 
are  answered  in  the  following  article.] 
“Aerials  are  queer  things,”  says  a  cer¬ 
tain  radio  book,  and  it  isn’t  far  from  the 
truth,  surely— fingers  that  reach  out  into 
the  ether  and  secure  the  “makings”  of  a 
feast  for  the  invisible  man,  nets  that 
snare  sensations  and  ideas  that  might 
otherwise  never  come  into  our  ken.  But 
the  author  quoted  referred  more  particu¬ 
larly  to  the  vagaries  of  our  friend  the 
aerial.  • 
Vaehel  Lindsey  said  every  man  should 
spread  a  net  “to  catch  the  moonbeams.” 
He  also  should  not  fail  to  snare  the 
scarcely  less  elusive  radiations  from  his 
nearest  radio  broadcasting  station.  Just 
how  to  do  this  is  the  matter  in  hand. 
Be  sure  your  aerial  is  thoroughly  in¬ 
sulated  from  everything  but  your  receiv¬ 
ing  set.  A  No.  12  or  No.  14  copper  wire. 
7.~>  to  150  ft.  long  and  elevated  about  30 
to  50  ft.  from  the  ground,  is  about  the 
best  aerial  available  ior  the  average  re¬ 
ceiving  set.  The  aerial  may  be  either 
bare  or  insulated  wire,  it  does  not  seem 
to  matter.  For  insulators,  ordinary  glass, 
porcelain  or  earthenware  insulators  used 
on  telephone  or  telegraph  wires  are  easily 
available  and  entirely  satisfactory. 
Your  aerial  should  be  one  piece  of 
wire  from  the  farthest  end  to  the  double 
throw  switch  placed  on  the  house  near 
where  your  aerial  enters  to  connect  with 
your  set.  Fasten  the  aerial  to  the  center 
post  of  your  switch ;  to  one  post  attach  a 
good  ground  wire,  so  as  to  ground  your 
aerial  in  thunderstorms;  to  the  third 
post  of  the  switch  attach  an  insulated 
copper  wire  to  connect  to  your  set.  Two 
or  more  pieces  of  wire  may  be  used  in  the 
aerial  if  they  are  joined  by  a  long,  tightly 
wrapped  joint  of  brightly  scraped  wire 
which  is  then  soldered  or  covered  with 
cambric  tubing.  The  aerial  should  be  so 
planned  that  the  lead-in  is  on  the  lower 
end,  and  this  end  should  be  the  end  near¬ 
est  the  station  you  wish  to  bring  in. 
(This  for  a  crystal  set,  of  course.  The 
vacuum  tube  set  brings  them  in  from  all 
over.) 
A  friend  has  a  gaspipe  pole  75  ft.  high, 
secured  by  guy  wires.  From  an  insulator 
at  the  top,  the  125-ft.  aerial  is  led  to  the 
switch  near  the  set.  This  arrangement 
has  given  excellent  results. 
From  a  mast  on  top  of  my  barn,  No.  1 
aerial  runs  north  to  the  second  mast  by 
the  chimney  on  the  house.  For  an  ex- 
perimenf,  Another*  wire  was  extended 
west  from  the  house  to  the  top  of  a 
dead  tree  80  ft.  away,  and  slanting  down¬ 
ward  a  little.  Either  aerial  answers  very 
well  for  St.  Louis,  00  miles  away,  but  it 
is  only  No.  1  aerial  that  has  brought  in 
Detroit  (over  200  miles  away)  on  the 
crvstal  set. 
The  ground  wire  from  the  receiving  set 
should  be  soldered  to  an  iron  rod  driven 
5  ft.  to  6  ft.  into  the  ground,  to  damp 
earth.  The  dampness  is  essential.  If 
there  is  any  doubt  about  if.  punch  a  deep 
hole  with  a  crowbar  and  irrigate  your 
“ground.” 
This  article  is  written  in  part  to 
answer  several  inquirers  who  are  having 
trouble  with  crystal  sets.  If.  your  set  is 
wired  according,  to  directions,  and  you 
lvxve  a  sensitive  crystal,  your  trouble  is 
almost  surely  in  aerial  or  ground  wires. 
Be  sure  all  ioints  and  connections  are  as 
perfect — and  as  few — as  you  can  make 
them.  Have  all  binding  posts  screwed  up 
snugly. 
Ground  wires  should  be  as  short  and 
as  direct  as  possible,  and  must  lead  to 
water  or  moist  earth.  (If  necessary,  ir¬ 
rigate.  ) 
Aerial  for  crystal  sets  should  be  about 
150  ft.  long,  including  lead-in,  and  30  to 
50  ft.  high.  The  higher  the  better.  Take 
the  little  pains  necessary  to  secure  the 
best  results  with  this  greatest  of  mod¬ 
ern  miracles,  and  join  the  ever-increasing 
army  of  listeners-in. 
Some  correspondents  seem  to  think  the 
results  claimed  in  my  former  article  are 
very  remarkable.  We  must  be  a  live 
bunch  here  at  Girard,  for  I  haven’t  been 
able  to  out-distance  several  of  my  neigh¬ 
bors. 
Of  course,  the  more  sensitive  your 
’phones,  the  better  results  you  will  have, 
but  properly  construdled  aerials  and 
grounds  are  always  of  prime  importance. 
Illinois.  JESSE  W.  NEWELL. 
Animals  Forecasting  the  Weather 
I  have  been  reading  with  much  inter¬ 
est  the  different  opinions  of  your  readers 
in  regard  to  the  caterpillar  forecasting 
the  weather.  When  I  was  a  boy  on  my 
father's  farm  there  was  a  thing  that  hap¬ 
pened  that  I  shall  never  forget.  Father 
was  burying  the  potatoes  in  late  Novem¬ 
ber.  and  it  was  quite  cold.  He  was  fork¬ 
ing  hay  frpm  a  hay  shock,  and  under  the 
shock  he  found  one  of  the  largest  bullfrogs 
I  ever  saw.  He  was  numb  with  the  cold. 
Father  took  him  to  the  house  and  put 
some  earth  in  a  small  keg.  set  the  frog 
in,  and  then  set  the  keg  in  the  cellar  and 
laid  a  board  over  it.  and  he  fed  him  on 
some  small  chunks  of  liver  about  every 
two  weeks.  The  last  of  February  it  got 
to  be  quite  warm,  and  had  been  for  some 
two  weeks,  so  that  the  air  was  full  of  in¬ 
sects,  and  it  seemed  as  though  Spring  was 
at  hand.  I  said  to  father  I  thought  it 
was  time  to  turn  the  frog  loose,  and  not 
keep  him  in  the  cellar  all  Summer. 
Father  said :  “Tomorrow  you  take  him 
down  to  the  pond  by  the  spring  and  turn 
him  loose.”  The  next  day,  about  noon, 
I  took  him  in  the  keg  down  to  the  pond 
and  turned  the  keg  over  about  five  or  six 
feet  from  the  edge  of  the  bank,  and 
steppped  away  a  few  steps,  and  waited 
for  him  to  come  out  of  the  keg;  but  ho 
would  not  budge,  so  after  waiting  quite 
a  while  I  went  up  and  spilled  him  out 
and  laid  the  keg  down  on  its  side  back 
some  three  feet  from  him.  And,  of  course, 
I  expected  him  to  make  one  long  leap 
into  the  pond,  but  he  sat  right  where  I 
spilled  him  out,  and  after  waiting  at  a 
distance  for  some  time.  I  got  a  long  pole 
and  gently  tried  to  get  him  to  make  the 
leap,  but  instead  he  commenced  to  crawl 
towards  the  keg.  After  fooling  with  him 
for  some  time,  and  seeing  that  he  was  not 
going  to  take  to  the  water.  I  let  him  crawl 
back  in  the  keg  and  took  the  keg  and  put 
it  back  in  the  cellar.  That  evening  I 
told  father  that  the  frog  had  staid  in  the 
cellar  so  long  he  had  forgotten  what 
water  looked  like. 
Father  had  a  big  laugh  at  me,  and  said 
he  guessed  not.  In  about  four  or  five 
days  it  began  to  turn  cold  and  snow’,  and 
it  kept  it  up  until  there  were  eight  or 
nine  inches  of  snow.  It  froze  up  tight 
and  stayed  that  way  for  about  10  days, 
when  it  began  to  moderate  again,  and 
turned  out  warm  and  fine.  About  the  last 
of  March  I  thought  I  would  try  the  frog 
again,  and  see  w’hat  he  would  do,  so  I 
took  him  to  the  same  spot  where  I  spilled 
him  out  before,  and  spilled  him  out  again, 
and  he  didn’t  more  than  hit  the  ground 
until  he  gave  one  big  quack  and  a  big  leap 
and  in  he  went.  Question :  How  did  he 
know  that  Winter  wras  not  over  the  first 
time  I  took  him  to  the  pond? 
Missouri.  e.  a.  estep. 
Getting  Rid  of  Rats 
Some  years  ago  wTe  kept  shelled  corn 
in  a  barrel.  When  it  was  nearly  used 
out,  we  found  that  rats  jumped  into  it 
and  could  not  get  out  again.  Thereafter 
my  father  and  brother  used  the  barrel  as 
a  trap,  visiting  it  each  night  and  morn¬ 
ing,  and  they  killed  many  rats;  once,  I 
believe,  as  many  as  34  in  36  hours.  Per¬ 
sonally,  I  prefer  to  delegate  the  task  of 
rat  killing  to  eats,  but  not  all  cats  are 
equally  good  rat  catchers.  Some  seem  to 
“specialize”  in  mice,  others  in  woods 
game,  such  as  chipmunks  and  birds,  and 
a  few,  the  most  valuable,  seem  to  hunt 
continually  for  rats,  taking  other  game 
only  incidentally.  We  have  owned  three 
cats  during  whose  respective  lifetimes  we 
could  safely  leave  bags  of  grain  standing 
in  the  barn  for  wTeeks. 
Last  Summer  a  neighbor  of  ours  had 
an  experience  w’hich  gives  a  valuable  sug¬ 
gestion.  He  kept  a  swill  barrel  (a  prac¬ 
tice  which  must  be  very  unsanitary)  and 
one  day  threw  in  oats,  part  of  which 
floated  on  top.  Next  day  he  found  sev¬ 
eral  drowned  rats  in  the  barrel,  and  he 
continued  to  catch  them  in  this  way.  The 
apparently  firm  surface  presented  by  the 
floating  oats  decoyed  them  to  a  watery 
grave.  Why  not  use  a  deep  crock  in  this 
way,  with  sufficient  water  to  serve  the 
purpose  ?  g.  a.  T. 
R.  N.-Y. — This  plan,  with  modifica¬ 
tions,  has  been  suggested  by  several  of 
our  readers.  Usually  a  layer  about  2  in. 
deep  of  chaff  and  bran  is  left  to  float  on 
top  of  the  water  in  the  barrel.  The  rats 
jump  in  after  the  grain  and  drown.  An¬ 
other  plan  is  to  put  a  tilting  top  on  the 
barrel  with  bait  on  it.  The  rats  get  on 
this  top  and  their  weight  tips  them  down 
into  the  water.  By  the  way,  has  anyone 
known  of  a  cat  too  cowardly  to  fight  a 
rat?  We  have  heard  of  it. 
After  giving  the  new  stable  boy  direc¬ 
tions  for  treating  a  sick  horse,  the  master 
returned  in  a  little  while  to  see  if  all  had 
gone  well.  He  found  the  stable  boy  chok¬ 
ing  and  spluttering,  his  face  various  hues 
of  red.  blue  and  green.  “What’s  wrong?” 
said  the  boss.  “Well,  you  said  to  put  a 
tube  in  his  mouth  and  blow  the  powder 
down.”  “Yes.”  “Well,  he  blew  first.”1 — 
Everybody’s  Magazine. 
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Or  when  you  go  to  town  there  is 
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When  you  buy  a  closed  car  you 
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