Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/146

 restraint and no one, not in on the know would have ever suspected it.

At Poldhu, on the Cornish coast of England, the Marconi Company had built, for the express purpose of making this greatest of all experiments, the most powerful wireless station that had yet been put up. It had been figured by Marconi and his technical adviser of England, Dr. Fleming, that to transmit wireless messages across the ocean, 15 vertical wires 210 feet high, would have to be used and that these would have to be energized by oscillating currents equal to about 25 horse power. It was indeed a veritable lightning and thunder plant!

On Thursday, the 12th of December, we flew another kite and Mr. Marconi came out and personally saw to it that no flukes were made. The wind was still high and fitful, but with extreme care in which all of us, including Mr. Marconi, took a hand we somehow got it up and held it at about 400 feet.

Then the inventor and Mr. Kemp went into the wireless room. This was about 11:30 o’clock in the morning, St. Johns time. We held the kite as steady as we could and I knew that the supreme time in Marconi’s life was at