FOR MY THIRTY-SIXTH READING from Dead Air, “The Relay System,” I was in a very good mood, a little high on hope.
THE SIGNAL from the broadcasting set that I built from a kit about thirty-seven years ago, thus launching my brief career in the radio business, didn’t reach very far. My mother could pick it up loud and strong in the kitchen, where the receiver was about fifteen feet from the transmitter in my bedroom. People in neighboring houses and in a few of the houses across the street could hear me well enough to understand most of what I was saying, and people in a ring of houses beyond that could detect my signal as a presence on the dial where there would otherwise have been a void, although this presence was a negative kind of presence, an absence of static rather than the presence of a program. In all, I reached a potential audience of about twenty households, which was going to make it hard to sell advertising.
My most likely prospect for advertising was Porky White, who ran the Kap’n Klam clam bar near the docks. He was an enthusiast and a dreamer. So was I. We had an unspoken agreement between us to be gentle with each other’s schemes, so I felt sure that I could count on his support. However, most of the town of Babbington lay between my broadcasting station and his clam bar, so there wasn’t a chance that my signal would reach him. To overcome that obstacle, I put the transmitter in a box and took it to the clam bar, where I set it up in a booth, and by way of demonstration broadcast the word testing to a radio on the counter.
“That’s great,” he said, and in his voice I could hear the enthusiasm I’d hoped to hear. “When are you going on the air? I’ll cater the grand opening — all the clam fritters you want. But I tell you what — every now and then, could you just kind of pause, interrupt whatever you’re saying, and kind of smack your lips and say how delicious the clam fritters are that you’re having at the grand opening, which came from Kap’n Klam? That would be a big help to us, because when people hear you saying that right over the radio, I bet they’re going to get a pretty irresistible urge to have some clam fritters, and I mean immediately. I’ll tune you in on the radio in the restaurant here, and — hey — I’ll even be a sponsor. What are your advertising rates?”
I was strongly tempted to take the money and run, but Porky and I had been friends for a long time, and I felt that I owed him the truth, so I said, “I can’t broadcast very far. The signal’s kind of weak, and anyway the FCC won’t let me go past 250 feet.”
“So what?” he said, now completely besotted by enthusiasm. “You could come and set up here. We could put you in the kitchen, and tune you in on the radio in the dining room.”
“But that’s not broadcasting,” I said. “I might as well just sit here and talk to the people directly.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” said Porky. “I think there’s a fundamental difference between listening to someone directly and listening to someone’s voice transmitted to a radio, even if it’s only over a distance of 250 feet, but I see what you mean. It wouldn’t be much fun. It wouldn’t be like really being on the radio.”
“No.”
“There’s got to be a way. Tell me about this transmitter. ”
“Well, let’s see. I made it from a kit — ”
“Uh-oh, wait a minute. Not the whole story. I know you want to tell me the whole story, but now’s not the time.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t take offense, it’s just that I know you would tell me the complete history of this transmitter, and how radio works, and what your favorite radio programs are — ”
“Okay,” I said. “I see what you mean.”
“Sorry, but — ”
“That’s all right. Let’s see. It’s got a dial that lets you pick the frequency you’re going to broadcast on.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s got a microphone, so that what you say gets broadcast.”
“There’s your answer,” said Porky.
“Really?” I said. “Where?”
“You can broadcast anything the microphone hears, right?”
“Yes.”
“So if I had a radio a block away from you, and next to it I had a transmitter with the microphone on — ”
“You could send the signal to the next block!”
“Where somebody else — ”
“ — with a radio and a transmitter — ”
“ — could send it to the next block — ”
“That is a great idea,” I said, and I meant it, since practicality was never a requirement in the house of hopes and dreams.
[to be continued]
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