The Radio Boys with the Forest Rangers; Or, The great fire on Spruce Mountain

There are two aspects of radio as a vital factor in saving life and property which are very vividly brought out in this interesting volume of the Radio Boys Series—namely its use in connection with the patrol work in detecting forest fires, and the regular international ice patrol in the dangerous waters of the north Atlantic. So splendidly have these two functions of radio been developed, that they have become accepted as commonplace in our lives, and it is only by such stories as “The Radio Boys with the Forest Rangers” that we are awakened to their importance.

Another interesting account in this volume is the detailing of the experimental work recently carried out at the Schenectady broadcasting station, when the voice which was radiated through the ether was actually reproduced from an ordinary moving picture film.

Just think of the marvel of this. The words of the speaker were photographed on a film, and held in storage for several weeks, before the streaks of light were re-converted into electric impulses, and then transferred into faithful reproduction of speech in a million homes. How great are the possibilities thus unfolded to the immediate future. Here we have a record that is better than that of the phonograph, because there will be no scratchiness from a needle in its reproduction to mar the original tones.

The period over which the Radio Boys Series has been produced has seen the most remarkable all-around development of radio in history. Now upon the publication of the latest volume in the series there comes the announcement that a Hungarian scientist has been successful in transmitting an actual picture of a current event as it is occurring.

We are upon the very threshold of TELEVISION—the system which converts the etheric vibrations that correspond to vision, and translates them into impulses of electric energy which can be radiated through space, and picked up by specially designed radio receivers. The system of course can also be applied to telegraph and telephone wires.

The development of this promising invention means that in the near future we will be able to see the person to whom we are speaking, whether we use the ordinary telephone or the wireless telephone as a means of communication. This truly is an age of radio wonders!

Jack Binns

Clyx.com