The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol: Or, The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire PatrolTheiss, Lewis E. (Lewis Edwin)
General
The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol: Or, The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol
Theiss, Lewis E. (Lewis Edwin)
Forest fires -- Prevention and control -- Juvenile fiction; Radio operators -- Juvenile fiction
The erection of the tower was another task for which Charley would be
responsible. Long before the road was completed, therefore, Charley and
the forester went over every step in the process of construction, and
decided how to do each task, from the making of the concrete foundations
to the stringing of the telephone wires when the tower was complete. The
tower itself was to be a slender steel structure made of angle-iron
supports bolted together, with a little square room at the top for the
watcher. This room would be enclosed on every side with glass windows, and
from this great elevation a watcher could see in every direction over
miles and miles of forest. A telephone would connect with the forester's
office.
At the foot of this tower Mr. Marlin intended to build a snug, little
cabin, so that the tower man could remain at his post twenty-four hours a
day throughout the fire season. The materials for the cabin would be
trucked in along the new road and carried up the mountain, and some of
them would be cut right on the spot; for the forester planned to erect a
neat log cabin.
Before the road was completed, Charley had cement carried in as far as the
trucks could travel. Then the cement was carried up the mountain by
laborers. It had been put in small sacks so that it could be handled
easily. Sand was already at hand, and water could be had at the run coming
from the spring by which Charley had camped. Tools and boards were
brought, the proper excavations made, forms fashioned and fitted into the
excavations, and then cement was mixed and poured into the forms to make
the foundation to which the tower was to be bolted. By the time the road
was finished so that the steel framework could be trucked in, the cement
foundations were hard as stone and ready for the instant erection of the
tower.
At once the steel frame began to ascend. Upright was added to upright,
cross brace bolted to cross brace, and rung after rung added to the steel
ladder that led up to what was to be the watch-tower. In a surprisingly
short time the steel work was completed. Now the forester brought in
skilled carpenters and the wood for the tower room was cut after the
patterns and the cut pieces hoisted up to the top of the steel frame where
the watch-tower itself began to take shape.
While these operations were afoot, Charley and his laborers were back in
the forest, running a telephone-line along the new road. Holes had to be
dug, poles cut, barked, hauled, and set up, and the wires strung. While
his men set the poles, Charley himself, with a helper, strung the wires.
At this job he needed no instruction. His experiences with the wireless
were now of great value to him, for he understood about insulation,
grounding, short circuits, and the like as well as any skilled lineman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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