The early days of Amateur Radio
WIRELESS AMATEURS IN TORONTO

        The spread of the wireless telegraphy "fad"
amongst the young men of Canada has become so remarkable
that a club of 150 active members is under way in
Toronto, and Montreal is promising to follow suit, although
on a more modest plan.

        As on the Amercan side of the border, stringent
laws have been passed by the Dominion Government regulating
the possible interference of amateurs with commercial
messages. That such a law was not placed on the statute
books an hour too soon may be judged from the fact that
in Toronto alone there are often fifteen amateur wireless
systems in operation on the same night and within a radius
of about twelve square miles. When one of the two
powerful commercial plants established locally get into
action, the amateurs usually close down shop for the time
being, not only because they are obliged to do so by law,
but also since they prefer to do so for the sake of their
own apparatus and ear drums.

        Some of these young enthusiasts carry their hobby
to remarkable development. One of them has an aerial
elevated seventy feet and stretched two hundred feet long,
the benefits of which are that he has a much more sensitive
instrument for receiving and can, in fact, get more Hertzian
waves than his more sparingly equipped comrades of the
wireless cult. Nearly every day he receives without any
difficulty from New York, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Colon
(Panama), Key West and Washington. Others, however, content
themselves with a five or ten mile radius and by diligent
application to the Continental Code, the standard for
wireless, have mastered the alphabet thoroughly. Their
nightly conversations with one another have led to mutual
introductions through the exchange of names and addresses
over the housetops, and finally to the assembling of the
young men within the lines of a Wireless Club.

        The investment in wireless apparatus for amateurs
in Canada alone last year amounted to several hundred
thousand dollars, the demand coming from villages on the
Atlantic Coast right across the continent to the towns and
cities of British Columbia. There is probably no young
man's hobby so absorbing in interest, so beneficial to mind
and body, or with as few drawbacks even when carried to the
extreme of enthusiasm as wireless experimenting. Electricity
is an exhaustless subject and the purchase of a wireless
outfit is but the door to a further search. - Robson Black

The item above was taken from "MODERN ELECTRICS", of
June, 1913.