The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol by Lewis E. Theiss
page 257 of 300 (85%)
page 257 of 300 (85%)
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laborers. It had been put in small sacks so that it could be handled
easily. Sand was already at hand, and water could be had at the run coming from the spring by which Charley had camped. Tools and boards were brought, the proper excavations made, forms fashioned and fitted into the excavations, and then cement was mixed and poured into the forms to make the foundation to which the tower was to be bolted. By the time the road was finished so that the steel framework could be trucked in, the cement foundations were hard as stone and ready for the instant erection of the tower. At once the steel frame began to ascend. Upright was added to upright, cross brace bolted to cross brace, and rung after rung added to the steel ladder that led up to what was to be the watch-tower. In a surprisingly short time the steel work was completed. Now the forester brought in skilled carpenters and the wood for the tower room was cut after the patterns and the cut pieces hoisted up to the top of the steel frame where the watch-tower itself began to take shape. While these operations were afoot, Charley and his laborers were back in the forest, running a telephone-line along the new road. Holes had to be dug, poles cut, barked, hauled, and set up, and the wires strung. While his men set the poles, Charley himself, with a helper, strung the wires. At this job he needed no instruction. His experiences with the wireless were now of great value to him, for he understood about insulation, grounding, short circuits, and the like as well as any skilled lineman. So the telephone-line came on apace, and long before the tower was finished, Charley had the line complete from the highway, where it joined the main line, to the summit of the hill where the tower was going up. He installed an instrument in a waterproof box nailed to a tree, so that he |
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