of wireless telegraphy in military service is the wireless telegraph automobile. The automobile is a stock pattern touring car of 30 H. P. provided with a special body arranged to carry six passengers. The seats are elevated so as to afford storage space below for the entire wireless equipment and a truly astonishing amount of miscellaneous supplies. FIG. 107. Company D Signal Corps at San Antonio, Texas, 1911, showing pack sets and telescoping pole carried by pack mules. The mast used to elevate the aerial is of light steel construction divided into eight sections which nest into one another with admirable economy of space. The socket for the foot of the mast is located in the center of the tonneau. Only a few minutes are required to raise the mast and aerial. The same gasoline motor employed to drive the automobile also drives a small dynamo which supplies the electric current for the transmitting apparatus. Two of these cars have been experimentally operated over a number of the old battle-fields of the Civil War. FIG. 108.-U. S. Signal Corps pack sets shown open and closed. Receiving apparatus on the left. The tests were made under all sorts of road and weather conditions but no great difficulty was experienced in establishing communication over distances varying from 35 to 50 miles. There is probably no application of wireless telegraphy, however, quite as picturesque as the combination of wireless and an aeroplane and the idea of a double seated aeroplane carrying an aviator and a wireless operator hovering over a hostile country to keep the commanding FIG. 109.-The receiving apparatus of the airship "America" (Wellman expedition). officer informed of all conditions and movements of the enemy. The huge dirigible balloon Akron in which Melville Vanniman proposed to cross the Atlantic Ocean was fitted with wireless equipment in order to transmit news of the expedition en route to various of the daily newspapers of New York and London and also in case of an accident or emergency to summon aid. |