I had a diagram that Charlie gave me which showed exactly how the instruments were connected up, and as I wanted to be able to say “I did it myself,” and without the advice or criticism of any of the fellows, I started to work on it as soon as I got home. I used my imposing table to set the apparatus on and it was not long before I had it all wired up as per the diagram. Verily I was a proud youth when I put on the head-phone, adjusted the detector and moved the slider of the tuning coil back and forth. I knew just how to do it because I had seen the other fellows make these same adjustments a thousand times. “I can call spirits from the vasty deep,” boasts Glendower in Shakespeare’s play of “Henry IV.” “Why, so can I, or so can any man, but will they come when you do call for them?” retorts Hotspur. That just about states my case, for I could adjust the detector and run the slider back and forth on the tuning coil and so can any one else, but to be able to get a message is quite another matter. But then perhaps, as I thought, no one was sending, so I telephoned over to Bob and asked him to send something and to send it slow. I went back to my receiver but try as I would I couldn’t get a thing. Gee, but it was discouraging. In about fifteen minutes Bob popped in and by this time I was right glad to see him. He looked over the apparatus, not like an amateur but like a professional operator, and saw to it that all of the wires were tight. “You’ve got it connected up all right and we ought to get it. Somebody ought to be sending something.” He put on the receiver and listened, but to no purpose. He looked perplexed. As he was listening and trying to adjust the receiver, he glanced out of the window. “You’re a great operator, you are,” he said with a rueful countenance; “how do you suppose you’re going to get anything when you haven’t got your lightning switch closed?” Well, from that day to this when anything goes wrong I always look first to see if all the switches are closed and the connections are tight. “Ollie Nichols of South Orange is telling Eddie Powers to meet him at the Y.M.C.A., and have a swim,” he said with a grin. Then he clapped the receiver on my head and I heard the signals coming in as plain as day, only I didn’t know what the fellows who were sending were talking about. To make a long, and for me a most pleasant, story short I learned the _Continental Morse Code_ which was used by all Marconi stations and when I got so I could read the _kid_ stations in and around Montclair, I began to branch out and pick up the commercial stations.