Page:The Wireless Operator with the U.S. Coast Guard.djvu/216

 CHAPTER XV

OR a moment Henry was dumbfounded. He could not imagine what had gone wrong. Then it occurred to him that perhaps he had a faulty connection somewhere. He ran his eye and hand over all the lengths of wire in his outfit, but nowhere could he see anything wrong. More than once he tested his key, but it did not come to life. Then he thought of his auxiliary batteries and switched to them. The result was the same. Everything appeared to be all right, but there was no answering flash when he pressed the key. He thought of trying to make some new sort of connection with this secondary battery. The difficulty was that he did not really know what was wrong. He knew enough about the equipment, he felt sure, to find the difficulty. He started to make an examination, but stopped after loosening several screws. It occurred to him that this might take him a long time. He would not work so surely or so accurately as a man trained like the chief electrician. Furthermore, he might, in trying to remedy matters, make them worse.