In those early days, although it was only ten years ago, the regular operators didn’t send as fast as they do now and this made it quite easy to read them. It was not many weeks before I could double discount Bob on receiving, but he was always a shark on the _theory_ of the thing. What he didn’t know about electric waves, electric oscillations, disruptive discharges, tuning open and closed circuits and all the rest of that deep stuff was, to my way of thinking, not worth knowing. Bob lived up to his reputation for he graduated from Princeton, got a Ph.D. degree, became a Captain in the Signal Corps of the Army and is now somewhere in France. I was quite well satisfied for a long while just to _listen in_, but finally the novelty of the thing wore off and I felt that I must needs send also. My first transmitter was made up of a one-inch spark coil, a Leyden jar condenser, a tuning coil, a key and a lot of dry cells. As I was now in possession of a complete station, when the other kid stations wanted me they used to signal J K H and these remained my call letters until the government took a hand in wireless. Thus it was I landed at last fairly and squarely in the amateur class. My wireless proclivities were getting the better of my scholastic training and my folks were quite worried over and more than tired of it. So one sweet day dad and I had a long talk and he did the most of it. “Wireless,” he said gently but firmly, “is a good horse if you don’t ride it to death, but that is just what you are doing. There isn’t a minute of the time you are in the house, when you are not eating or sleeping, that you haven’t got that pair of receivers glued to your ears.” “But, dad, next to Bob, I get the highest marks in physics in my class and I’m nearly a year younger than he is too. Why I can tell the _prof_ things he doesn’t know about the emission, propagation and reception of electromagnetic waves,” I enthused, pulling off some of that heavy, theoretical stuff of Bob’s. “That is all very well,” he came back, “and I’m glad you can talk so understandingly, at least to your father, but those big words are not getting you anywhere in algebra and that’s the point at issue.” Then suddenly veering the subject he asked, “How far can you send a message with that coil apparatus there?” “A couple of miles in daylight if the atmosphere is right and about twice that far at night if there is not too much interference. You see--” “How much would an apparatus cost that had power enough to send say twenty miles?” he broke in. “About fifty dollars, I guess,” I made reply. “Then let’s strike a bargain. It’s two months till school is out and if you will bend your efforts and pass everything--everything, mind you--I’ll see to it that you have a sending outfit that’s worth something.” “Dad, you’re all right,” I ejaculated, shaking his hand warmly. “And you’re all right, too, Jack, if you’ll only speed up in your studies a bit.”