"Theodore Sturgeon - Ether Breather" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sturgeon Theodore)

"I have," I said. "My gosh, don't tell me he spieled it?"
"
Right," said Berbelot. "In detail, over the unsullied air-waves. I called up right away, b
couldn't get through. XZM's trunk lines were jammed. A very worried-looking switchboard g
hooked up I don't know how many lines to-gether and announced into them: 'If you people a
calling up about the secretary's speech, there is nothing wrong with it. Now please get off t
lines!' "
"Well," I said, "let's see what we've got. First, the broadcasts leave the studios as schedul
and as written. Shall we accept that?"
"Yes," said Berbelot. "Then, since so far no black-and--white broadcasts have been affecte
we'll consider that this strange behavior is limited to the polychrome technique."
"How about the recordings at the studios? They were in polychrome, and they were
affected."
Berbelot pressed a button, and an automatic serving table rolled out of its niche and stopped
front of each of us. We helped ourselves to smokes and drinks, and the table returned to its plac
"Cineradio's wasn't a television recording. Hamilton. It was a sound camera. As f
Associated's . . . I've got it! Griffis recording was transmitted to his recordin g machines by wir
from the studios! It didn't go out on the air at all!"
"You're right. Then we can assume that the only programs affected are those in polychrom
actually aired. Fine, but where does that get us?"
"Nowhere," admitted Berbelot. "But maybe we can find out. Come with me."
We stepped into an elevator and dropped three floors. "I don't know if you've heard that I'm
television bug," said my host. "Here's my lab. I flatter myself that a more com-plete one does n
exist anywhere."
I wouldn't doubt it. I never in my life saw a layout like that. It was part museum and pa
workshop. It had in it a copy of a genuine relic of each and every phase of television dow
through the years, right from the old original scan-ning-disk sets down to the late
three-dimensional atomic jobs. Over in the corner was an extraordinarily complicated mass
apparatus which I recognized as a polychrome transmitter.
"Nice job, isn't it?" said Berbelot. "It was developed in here, you know, by one of the lads wh
won the Berbelot scholarship." I hadn't known. I began to have real respect for this astonishin
man.
"Just how does it work?" I asked him.
"Hamilton." he said testily, "we have work to do. I would he talking all night if I told you. B
the general idea is that the vibrations sent out by this transmitter are all out of phase with ea
other. Tinting in the receiver is achieved by certain blendings of these out-of-phase vibrations
they leave this rig. The effect is a sort of irregular vibrationтАФa vibration in the electromagnet
waves themselves, resulting in a totally new type of wave which is still receivable in a standa
set."
"I see," I lied. "Well, what do you plan to do?"
"I'm going to broadcast from here to my country place up north. It's eight hundred miles aw
from here, which ought to be sufficient. My signals will be received there and automatical
returned to us by wire." He indicated a receiver standing close by. "If there is any differen
between what we send and what we get, we can possibly find out just what the trouble is."
"How about FCC?" I asked. "SupposeтАФit sounds funny to say itтАФbut just suppose that w
get the kind of strong talk that came over the air during my `Seashell' number?"
Berbelot snorted. "That's taken care of. The broadcast will be directional. No receiver can get
but mine."
What a man! He thought of everything. "O.K.," I said. "Let's go."
Berbelot threw a couple of master switches and we sat down in front of the receiver. Ligh