SLPD_1904_06_11_P1_002_04.txt

the tower. It goes everywhere, into ev conceivable point of the. com: ASS. ee  Now it seems that everybody would t the news the Post-Dispatch was prom in from the Fair to the Broadway office. But no. There is just one place in all the world where that spark can be stopped. That is at the top of the Post-Dispatch bufiding, where the little wires hang on the jackstaff. Al! the other newspapers on earth may hold up their little wires and try to catch the messuge, but it would elude them all and dart into the wire on 7 the Post-Dispatch building.  That is because only tne Post-Dispatch responder is attuned tp the sender from which Post-Dispatch news is launched into the air at the be Forest tower. The Post- Dispatch has its note, and the sender and the receiver both sing that note. If the re- ceiver is out of tune with the sender, the message would go floating around through space until the ethereal waves tired of car- rying it and dumped it off into some far- away sea. Nobody would get it. 7}  You can steal a mans thunder, but you can't steal his lightning in the wireles tel- egraph business, that is. unless you get possession of his lightning rod.  The De Forest people established their system at the Post-Dispatch office quicker than they had ever established any other station. Abraham White, germany of the { company, and H, H. Fennell, one/of the ex- pert operators, came to the office last night, strung their wires, and in 15 minutes from the time they started, they called upa Western Unton telegraph boy, who was looking on, and clapped the telephone con- nection from the receiving staff on the lit- tle fellow’s head.  Click-click-click came the first message to the Post-Dispatch and a Western Union boy received it.  Maybe this wasn’t a joke on the Western | 1 Union. The De Forest people thought. it]; was great fun. Ha-ha!  Even serious men must have their little jokes. ‘  A ] Service Was  Begun at Noon.  The wireless telegraph service between |! the Post-Dispatch and the Fair entered |’ actual service at noon, when the writers at the Post-Dispatch Fair bureau in the Press | | building filed their stories with the operator ‘ in the De Forest tower. The operator clicked them off on his telegraph instru- |‘ ment, the electricity chased them up the |: wire, made them leap the gap, and sent], them flashing out into space, leaving the wire everywhere, some of them hopping off |! low down, others going out into space from |; the very tip of the wire at the tower. ;  The news stories raced through space and buildings for four miles, impigned them- selves upon the little wire at he top of the |, Post-Dispatch building, and slid down the wire to the wireless telegraph receiving Station on the ground floor, (  In this office sat Mr. Fennell, with a tele-|, phore receiver over his head and clapped | to his ears. He sat beside the only instru- ment put in at the Post-Dispatch oftice— |; the responder. He heard the clicking of the Morse code, and began writing the stories.  The news came at the rates of 30 words a minute, and Mr. Fennell sent them, all written just as the Post-Dispatch writers had filed them at the Fair, up to the ed- itor’s desk.  A crowd gathered upon the sidewalk in front of the Post-Dispatch office and looked up at the wires and he little jackstaff, and then inside at the operator working at the responder.  “What is it?” newcomers asked.  _ “The Post-Dispatch is getting its Fair news by wireless telegraphy.”’  This commanded interest at once. Isn't it interesting, really? Isn't it almost pos- sible to picture the flight of the current, leaping from the tower, flashing over houses out in the West End, crossing Grand ‘avenue and going straight through some of the big buildings there, and continuing its course down into the city, where one af- ter another the big buildings lifted their great heads to obstruct it. Do they vee it? No, not for an instant. It penetrates them without oe oe and speeds straight on into Broadway, where it hops on the point of the little wire. | That’s the wayothey do it ip wireless telegraphy. | Menge moot aes and Lamy sit eres of the Fair andethe- ? Isn't it getting there, though? POR amin Franklin like to be here to put that little telephone to ‘his ears and hear the click-click of the in- vention of which, doubtless, he never | dreamed? Wouldn't the masters of magic like wo equal a real, practical trick like that. and isn't the world getting small?