Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/212

 sages that they could only get as a jumble of signals. Later on I began to experiment with head-phones and tried out every make I could get hold of in order to find one that was particularly sensitive and especially suited to my ear.

When I was chief wireless operator on the Andalusian I met operators from all over the world. Once when I was in London I scraped up an acquaintance with a young Swede and he had about half-a-dozen pairs of head-phones that he had picked up in different countries. Telephone receivers for wireless work are like violins in that no two of them are alike and you can’t tell by their appearance what they are really worth; like violins, too, telephone receivers improve with age provided the magnets are made of the right kind of steel and properly tempered.

One of the pairs of head-phones this Swede operator showed me was made in Sweden by the , and it was by far the most sensitive phone I had ever used. I bought the pair of him for a sovereign but they are worth their weight in gold. With this pair of Ericsson’s on my head