“Sure, pardner.” Tom pointed toward a portable radio on a shelf nearby.
Chow’s leathery face broke into a grin as he picked it up. “One o’ them slick lil transistor doodads, eh?”
100
SQUARE-DANCE HOAX 101
The cook flicked on the dial knob and the twangy strains of Hawaiian guitar music came throbbing out. A split second later the volume swelled as the same music echoed back to them from the two-room apartment adjoining the lab, where Tom ate and slept when engaged in some round-the-clock experiment.
Chow was startled by the blare. “You got a stereo hookup here, boss?” he inquired.
“Not exactly.” Tom explained that the music had merely been picked up by the mike on his workbench, then fed into the adjoining apartment and amplified over a speaker there.
Chow grinned, snapping his fingers to the catchy melody. “Comes out even louder’n it does from the radio!”
“Yes, but the sound quality’s not so good,” Tom said. “You’d notice the difference with real stereo.”
Chow walked out with the portable, crooning contentedly to the music.
Tom frowned, trying to get his train of thought to focus once more on the submarine problem. But for some reason the business with the microphone and the speaker in the next room kept lingering in his mind.
Suddenly Tom exclaimed aloud, “Say! I wonder if that’s how the enemy sub blinds our sonar?”
The idea certainly seemed feasible. Suppose
102 THE ELECTRONIC HYDROLUNG
the submarine used a great many “microphones” -or receiving transducers-to pick up the sonar pulses beamed out by another craft trying to detect it? These impulses could then be passed on and sent out by speakers on the opposite side of the sub, and relayed along on their underwater path of travel.
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