Signalling across space without wires: being a description of the work of Hertz & his successors — John Shaqi
Signalling across space without wires: being a description of the work of Hertz & his successorsLodge, Oliver, Sir
Science
Signalling across space without wires: being a description of the work of Hertz & his successors
Lodge, Oliver, Sir
Electric waves; Telegraph, Wireless
It must be said, however, that the box must be exceedingly well closed
for the screening to be perfect. The very narrowest chink permits their
entrance, and at one time I thought I should have to solder a lid on
before they could be kept entirely out. Clamping a copper lid on to a
flange in six places was not enough. But by the use of pads of tinfoil
and tight clamping, chinks can be avoided, and the inside of the box
becomes then electrically dark.
If even an inch of the circuit protrudes, it at once becomes slightly
sensitive again; and if a mere single wire protrudes through the box,
not connected to anything at either end, provided it is insulated where
it passes through, the waves will utilise it as a speaking-tube, and
run blithely in. And this happens whether the wire be connected to
anything inside or not, though it acts more strongly when connected.
In careful experiments, where the galvanometer is protected in one
copper box and the coherer in another, the wires connecting the two
must be encased in a metal tube (Figs. 19C and 21), and this tube must
be well connected with the metal of both enclosures, if nothing is to
get in but what is wanted.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.--Spherical Radiator for emitting a Horizontal
Beam, arranged inside a Copper Hat, fixed against the outside of a
metal-lined Box, which contains induction coil and battery and key.
One-eighth natural size. The wires pass into the box through glass
tubes not shown.]
Similarly when definite radiation is desired, it is well to put the
radiator in a copper hat open in only one direction (Fig. 20), and in
order to guard against reflected and collateral surgings running along
the wires which pass outside to the exciting coil and battery, as they
are liable to do, I am accustomed to put all the sending apparatus in
a packing case lined with tinfoil, to the outside of which the sending
hat (Fig. 20) is fixed, and to pull the key of the primary exciting
circuit by a string from outside, so that not even key connections
shall protrude, else exact optical experiments are impossible.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.--General arrangement of experiments with
the Copper “Hat,” showing Metal Box on a Stool, standing outside
the Theatre. The Box is not exactly represented, but inside it the
Radiators were fixed with a graduated series of apertures; the Copper
Hat containing the Coherer is seen on the Table with the Metal Box
on the left of the Table containing Battery and Galvanometer Coil
connected to it by a compo pipe conveying the wires, as in Fig. 19C;
the Lamp and Scale barely indicated at one side of the Table; a
Paraffin Prism; and a Polarising Grid of copper wires stretched on a
frame. (This figure is from a thumbnail sketch by Mr. A. P. Trotter,
taken at the Lecture in 1894.)]
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