Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/167

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A Government Operator
143

in turn is discharged between a pair of spark balls, or a rotary spark-gap which is used for the same purpose.

Not having been thrown out of the sending room and having seen all there was. to see I opened the door to the Bureau de Recepteur and took a good look at the receiving apparatus. The detectors were of the electrolytic type, each of the cups which contained the solution having three wires sealed in it instead of one; this was the invention of Prof. Branly of Paris who got up the coherer several years before Marconi began his experiments in wireless.

The door of the Installation d’ Alimentation Electrique was open and I glanced in at the dynamos, motors and storage batteries and from the size of its equipment I judged the station to be about 100 horsepower. Having seen it all I opened the door of the Bureau de Telegraphie sans Fil and walked in just as we do in offices over here.

Somebody must have told the Directeur, or manager as we would call him in good old English, that I was coming for before I could explain in sign language that I wanted a job he, with the aid of a couple of other conspirators,