Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/846

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��Popular Science Monthly

��At nine in the morning the operator began to work, assisted by the ship's carpenter. Time passed, but practically no progress had been made on the slippery floor; then a thoughtful mate sent up a bucket filled with sand. An hour had elapsed before the transformer was back in its case and made fast. The auxiliary and accumulators were removed entirely and the condenser set upright. Spare plates which had been kept on the floor had somehow remained whole, but the acid had attacked the tinfoil and it was peeling off most of them. The container was cracked.

Asbestos Paste to the Rescue

An appeal to the engineers brought some asbestos paste to the cabin, and a so-called repair was effected. The result of four hours' intensive work was a con- denser haphazard in appearance but boasting twenty-four plates.

With an intermission here consisting of space for a long-drawn breath, Mc- Kenzie turned to the task of drying out the rest of the equipment. The rheostats had to be taken down, dried and oiled with insulative oil. The starter and the transformer required the same treatment. Two solid hours were spent on the motor; first the brushes came off and the inside was oiled as well as possible; there was no time to take out the armature.

Resourcefulness Wins an Inning

It was eight o'clock then. Eleven hours of ex^iausting work lay behind the oper- ator, but the race against time did not allow for a stop for dinner. He tried out the set. The first thing to go was the generator rheostat. Patiently he re- paired it. It blew again. With twenty feet of iron wire wound on a pencil he created a resistance. This, after a series of patient experiments, performed its function, although the motor ran un- steadily and sparked furiously. Another precious hour had been lost.

Once again the set was started, the key depressed and a radio land station call flew off across the sea. "A great moment," McKenzie describes it. "I waited. No answer. When I tried again the starter burned out in two places.

"Once more the asbestos paste proved invaluable; but the release magnet now

��refused to hold. With wire I hooked it up. The motor started then; but this time the field rheostat went on strike."

More Repairs Under Difficulties

Painstaking repairs were made, only to learn that although the apparatus operated, the generator rings were arcing across the dividing rings while the brush holders were leaking into the frame.

"These defects were remedied," says the operator, telling of his experience, "and I tried again. It was now midnight. I called CQ for a long time but received no answer. ... I had forgotten that the phones had been in acid and water all the day before.

"Although I dried out the headgear in the steam oven it was as wet as ever again in ten minutes. I tried cleaning the phones, while warm, with gasoline. Still I could hear nothing.

"The aerial was intact. I tried the tuner with the battery and found it dead. At two in the morning I succeeded in dry- ing it out.

At Last a Hopeful Sign

"I listened and caught the U.S. S. Proteus. My spirits rose. I called him — and away went the condenser, shot to pieces!

"Two hours later it was rigged up again, but the motor brushes were short- ing through the frame.

"I quit, and turned in for a nap."

At six in the morning, after a scant hour and a half's sleep, McKenzie turned to the job again. The sea still lashed vi- ciously at the vessel's side. Practically all his work had gone for nothing. Every seam in the wireless cabin was open, the roof badly sprung and his set as wet as ever. But at noon, after six hours of back-breaking effort, he considered everything in readiness and again tried to start up. Nothing happened. All the current went to ground through the soaked insulation.

With dogged persistence he turned once more to the task. Hours slipped by, precious ones. It was eight o'clock in the evening when a nearly exhausted operator concluded his long labor with motor and wiring. But it was done; a loyal sense of duty was rewarded — this time he got his message across!

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