QST/April 1916/Taking an Examination

by Little Willie

LISTEN, while I tell you how they made me buck the goat the other day, when I went up against it for a First Grade Comm.

There were three of us. We borrowed a semi-broken down omnigraph, and we listened to this running at anywhere from twenty-five to fifty-five words a minute, running frontward and backward until we had it all down pat, and could write it left handed whether the machine was running or not. I think it was successful in one particular only. It taught me The exclamation mark. I never knew it before.

There were not enough records for this omnigraph, but nevertheless we thought we ought to use it because they told us the Radio inspector would pull one on us when we went up for our exams. As an omnigraph sounds altogether different from the phones, we thought we ought to get used to the ’graf.

With the phones, and nobody around, and if the pencil is sharp and nice and soft, we can handle twenty easy, especially if we know what is coming. The latter makes a lot of difference. But when a half dozen disinterested and wholly unsympathetic critics stand around and watch you, and you have no idea as to what the stuff is that is going to come, and you also have a feeling down in your midst that you are almighty likely to flunk anyway, it is some job getting twenty, or even eighteen. At least that is the way the writer of these lines feels about it.

When the awful clay came and we found the office of the Radio inspector in the Custom house, we were just a little bit shaky. I wondered if I had overtrained. They say that you can do this in football and boat racing, and I don’t see why one could not also do it in wireless.

The office, when we timidly edged in the door, had a lot of other goats with scared looks on their faces sitting down at tables engaged in chewing the ends off of lead pencils. Some of them had their hair all mussed up where they had scratched it too hard, and others were just staring straight ahead into vacancy. The instrument of torture we recognized at once. It lay on the table over at the other end of the office, and had plenty of room to itself. No one wanted to get anywhere near it. The first look at its brass gears gave me a chill.

We mistook the Radio Inspector. I saw a man at a table and he looked sort of like the boss, so I asked him if he was the Radio Inspector. He said “No,” and I saw at once that he was nothing but a goat himself. He was struggling through a First Grade Amateur and was having quite a time with a diagram.

Finally a keen looking, quick spoken youngish man came up and guessed the first time who we were and what we wanted. He was without any doubt, the real thing and before our numbed intellects had quite mastered what was going on, he had us herded around the instrument of torture, and was hooking up the dry cells and fixing up those darned records. We each had plenty of paper given us, and knew that the awful moment had come.

The first thing was starting the machine up at nothing less than fifty-five words a minute. I gave up my goat on the spot. If he expected me to get anything at that speed, he was booked for a disappointment. The machine buzzed around so fast that you could not tell an H from an S to save your life. A J. and a figure 1 were absolutely alike, and what all the rest of the stuff was, was Greek to me. Then he pulled out his watch. I thought this was the sign to get ready, and I got, but noticing me, he said to wait a minute he was not ready yet. Then he screwed the business down and to my intense joy, the speed came down to something human. Finally he said to go ahead and we jumped in.

I got the first two letters O. K. Then something came and when I was trying to makeup my mind whether it was an X or a space sig., I lost half a dozen letters. I grabbed hold with a jerk again, realizing that I was losing my grip. A lot of mixed up stuff about tugs and docks and fires came in about one-half of which I got straight. I was just getting control of myself when he stopped the shebang and told us to correct it and write it out neatly. I don’t blame him, for the neat business. My copy looked like somebody had used the paper to sharpen a pencil on left—handed.

When I finished my copy and handed it in, I was dead sure I was not cut out for a First Grade Commercial. I might squeeze up some day to a cargo, and I ought to be satisfied with a First Grade Amateur. But, a First Grade Commercial—well, nothing doing for little Willie, I feared.

Then we had handed up a lot of papers with questions on them which Mr. Radio Inspector sliced up with a pair of scissors and told us to paste each part onto the top of our blank paper and go ahead. The first question suggested that we might draw, a complete diagram of a ship’s radio equipment, showing the complete transmitting equipment, receiving equipment, auxiliary emergency equipment,explain the object of all parts, give their names, and use symbols to your heart’s content. We had heard of this question, and we had crammed up on motor generators and storage batteries and wave meters, and decrement dingbobs, but when we came face to face with this diagram business, it seemed like quite a contract. After two hours and a half of drawing in and rubbing out, I had mine finished. Then I looked it over and found I had connected my DC ship mains up direct to my AC generator, and had forgotten all about my DC motor. This took another half-hour to correct.

Then I tackled my questions. I knew how many kinds of condensers there were and I also knew what inductance does to my wave length, and also what happens when I put a condenser in series in my ground lead. But what in time was the reason for using high resistance phones with a crystal detector got me. I had to give this one up, although I supposed a lot of the wise guys who read this will know all about it. I confess I did not then, but I do now, and let’s see some of you chaps guess on the subject.

I got snarled up trying to tell what I would do to prove that I had a pure wave. My goat got to slipping also when it came to proving whether or not my antenna was radiating, although I think I got by on this after a while. I made a fool of myself on what the law says about superfluous signalling. I allowed as how the law advises not to engage in this to pass time any more than was necessary. The correct answer is PROHIBITED. No half way business at all. Just simply out it out.

Finally after four and one-half hours, I was wringing wet and the job was finished. I waited around with my other fellow victims about an hour and found I had got away with 86 out of a possible 95. They cross five points off of experience in the case of an amateur because he has never worked a ship’s station. This figure nearly made me drunk. I expected about 56. I walked home with the other fellows, who also got good figures, and my little certificate in my pocket showing, I was a licensed First Grade Commercial operator, felt mighty good. I took it out fourteen times on the way home, to take a look at it.

Well, QRU nil, cul gn gn SK.