The next day the wind was just as high but we stuck to the barracks in
case it should go down. There were bits of talk among Mr. Marconi and
his assistants about the instruments, the ground, the aerial and other
things which would have been as Greek to any one but an old operator
like myself. I drank in every word that these pioneer wireless men said
but never a word said I. Once Mr. Paget asked me to hand him a dry-cell
and I handed him a binding post instead. Some one said “_stupid_” under
his breath but still loud enough for me to hear it and I was happy. None
of this _wireless kid_ stuff here. I was getting away with murder.
Mr. Paget looked at his watch. “Poldhu is sending now. Too bad we
haven’t a kite up, Mr. Marconi.”
“We must get it up. Mr. Kemp, will you be good enough to try again?” Mr.
Marconi said.
Oh-ho, said I to myself. I am in on big doings. What Mr. Marconi is here
for is not particularly to get signals from passing ships far out at
sea, but to try and get Poldhu! It made my hair stand on end at the
thought of such wonders. And if he gets it he will have spanned the
Atlantic--over 2,000 miles--with his wireless waves. He will have done
the biggest scientific thing since Cyrus Field joined the old and the
new worlds with his cable! Whoopee! Yow! Yow!
From that moment on I was walking on air. The inventor, whatever he may
have felt, was calm, cool and collected, dignified at all times but
always in a good humor. The strain he was undergoing must have been
tremendous, but he had trained himself well in the art of restraint and
no one, not _in on the know_ would have ever suspected it.
At Poldhu, on the Cornish coast of England, the _Marconi Company_ had
built, for the express purpose of making this greatest of all
experiments, the most powerful wireless station that had yet been put
up. It had been figured by Marconi and his technical adviser of England,
Dr. Fleming, that to transmit wireless messages across the ocean, 15
vertical wires 210 feet high, would have to be used and that these would
have to be energized by oscillating currents equal to about 25 horse
power. It was indeed a veritable lightning and thunder plant!
On Thursday, the 12th of December, we flew another kite and Mr. Marconi
came out and personally saw to it that no flukes were made. The wind was
still high and fitful, but with extreme care in which all of us,
including Mr. Marconi, took a hand we somehow got it up and held it at
about 400 feet.
Then the inventor and Mr. Kemp went into the wireless room. This was
about 11:30 o’clock in the morning, St. Johns time. We held the kite as
steady as we could and I knew that the supreme time in Marconi’s life
was at hand. After waiting half an hour--it seemed like an eternity of
time even to me--Mr. Kemp came out of the barracks and hurried over to
where we were holding the kite. I couldn’t tell from his face whether
the experiment had been a success or not, for an Englishman’s face
always looks the same.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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