Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/43

 the little window, but whether for the purpose of sending messages or out of curiosity I didn’t know. I stood about as much chance of getting up to that window as a fellow has of getting on a subway express at Brooklyn Bridge during the rush hour.

I went away in disgust and didn’t go back again until we had sailed down the river, passed through the Narrows and had dropped the pilot out at sea.

Suddenly I heard the ze—ze—zip—zip—zippy snap of the sparks of the transmitter as the operator began to send, and I rushed madly to the wireless room. As I ran down the passageway I read——that is B R T, B R T, B R T, at intervals of every two or three minutes; B R T was the call letter of some shore station that the operator was trying to get, but without my book, which gave the call letters of the different ship and shore stations, I couldn’t tell which one it was.

You know, of course, that when a vessel wants to talk to a station either on ship or shore the first thing the operator does is to listen-in—to make sure that he will not interfere with messages that are being exchanged between other