Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 158, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1919 — Voice Is Made As Loud As Cannon [ARTICLE]

Voice Is Made As Loud As Cannon

No Trick at All to Magnify Sound Five Million Times. WIRELESS EXPERT TELLS HOW Ticking of Watch Can Be Amplified Until It Sounds Like Breakers on an Ocean Cliff—ln Practical Use. San Francisco. —A man’s voice can be made as loud as the cannon’s roar; it can be-heard two or twenty miles. The ticking of a watch can be amplified until it sounds like breakers on an ocean cliff. “It’s no trick at all to magnify sound four or five million times, or indefinitely,” said Tom Lambert, a wireless telephone engineer. “All that is needful is to connect a number of vacuum valves in multiple with a wirelss receiving set, and the thing is done. At the first receiving contact a voice will be normal. Cut in one vacuum valve and it is raised seven times; thereafter it squares itself — seven times; thereafter it squares itself —seven times seven to forty-nine for the next vacuum valve, and fortynine times forty-nine for the next, and so on.”

“I mean volume of sound, not power of transmission,” explained Lambert. Tn a tesjt recently a phonograph was connected wdth an amplifier at midnight, and we were lifting it up gradually to supply all San Francisco with song and amusement, when the police urged us to desist. Grand Stand Hears Watph Tick. “In the stadium at Golden Gate park the ticking of a watch was made audible all over the grand stand while an athletic meet was in progress. Capt Robert W. A. Brewer, an experimenter, moved off 2,000 feet and spoke quietly to his dog, and the dog couldn’t be held. A wireless station which I am not permitted to name recently received a telephoned message from Europe, and through its amplifier startled duck hunters in the marshes eight miles away.” Mr. Lambert exhibited one of the vacuum valves. Its exterior resembled an ordinary 16-candle electric light bulb. Through the glass, however, could be seen electric winding that was dissimilar. Around a filament was wound convolutions of wire called a “grid.” Above the grid was Un encircling metallic plate. The current passed through each in the .order described. The Incoming wireless sig-

nals travel down the aerjal wire to the tuning set and then to the vacuum, valve, which Is a “detector,” or* receiver. For practical purposes the vacuum valve has its use, as In warships, where the wireless telephone speaks Its message through a horn to several officers Instead of to one using earpieces. It can be availed of to address audiences. The tireless telephone is wonderfully extending the field developed by the wireless telegraph. Any wireless telegraph receiving set is equally good for receiving telephoned messages. The transmitting Instruments, of course, are different. Every airplane possessed by. Uncle Sam and all United States warships are equipped with wireless telephone apparatus. These sets on warships are efficient at least 20 miles.