Page:January 1916 QST.djvu/8

  OPERATING ROOM AND POWER SUPPLY OF MR. ROSS GUNN, OBERLIN, OHIO.

Another of the well kept League stations is shown in the accompanying pictures. Mr. Gunn gets his power from the A. C. generator and its exciter and by means of the meters he knows just what power he is using. On the left hand side of the picture under the operation table is a rather novel form of oscillation transformer. The editor has no details as to its size but it certainly should be very efficient. Mr. Gunn has arranged his apparatus neatly; perhaps you can get some suggestions from his arrangement.



From an operating standpoint, the chief difficulty which confronts the amateur wireless telegrapher, is the lack of uniformity in the methods of test. Numerous examples of this have come to the writer's attention during the past three years in which he has spent much time on amateur radio communication.

The program which usually happens when two amateurs want to reach each other, is the following:― A hears from X that the latter gets B loud every night. A never has heard B and wonders how it is that X gets him when they are approximately the same distance away. A tunes up and tests and calls B, and makes a nuisance of himself all over his state, but fails utterly to communicate with B. He then sits down and writes B a letter. B answers in a few days to the effect that he was not at his instruments on the evening in question. Then he tells about some wonderful record he has made with a station anywhere from two to ten times as far away as A.

Then A decides he will do it right this time, so he writes back to B and says how pleased he was to hear from him, and suggests that they make a definite test the following Wednesday night at 9:15 sharp, Western Union time.

Wednesday night and 9:15 comes around on time, and A opens up exactly on the second. He has arranged to send the first 2½ minutes and then listen the next 2½ minutes for B. They were to alternate back and forth in this fashion until they got each other. A begins and sends carefully until exactly 9:17:30, and then he throws his aerial switch and begins to tune. He hears very distinctly a little boy on the next block with a spark coil, and a few dry cells stumbling through “HOW DO I SOUND.” A waits for this young 