Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/46

 liant idea struck me and I immediately proceeded to put it into execution with the result that it almost electrocuted me.

I took out my little portable receiving set, hooked a wire to the detector and the other end to the electric light fixture for a ground which, from what I had read about ship stations, I had reason to believe made a connection with the steel hull of the ship. Being so close to the 2 kilowatt (about 2½ horsepower) transmitter, one side of the spark-gap of which also made connection with the hull, I hadn’t the slightest doubt but that I could receive without an aerial and I certainly did, but the kind wasn’t right.

No sooner had I put on my head-phones and my fingers on the adjusting screw of the detector than zip, zum, bang, boom, and I received a terrific shock that lifted me clear off the edge of my bunk; I hung suspended in midair ’tween decks (or so it seemed) and to give verisimilitude to the levitation act, I recoiled like a 12-inch gun and hit the floor with a dull thud. I was glad the man I laughed at because he forgot, was not there to laugh at the fellow who didn’t know.