Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/161

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A Government Operator
137

my eyes on this greatest of twentieth century wonders to my heart’s content we went outside to get a close-up of the aerials.

“You see, Jack, we have two separate and distinct aerial wire systems. The first, which is strung up between the four great towers is used only for sending and the second which is suspended from the sticks is used only for receiving. These latticed towers are built of wood and each one is 410 feet high and together they form a square each side of which is 220 feet across.

“The sending aerial is formed of a large number of nearly parallel wires all of them spread out at the top and coming together at the bottom like an inverted pyramid. This aerial which has 60,000 feet of wire in it was suspended from the tops of the towers. A leading-in wire is secured to the ends of all the aerial wires where they come together at the bottom. It leads, as you see,” he pointed to the side of the building, “into the room through insulators where it is connected to the rotary spark-gap through a closed circuit.

“These masts, or sticks, which are arranged in three rows, hold up the receiving aerials.