“Hey! You’re right!” Tom exclaimed, his face lighting up. “And if we can get a fix by triangula-tion on the response pulse, we can locate the plane!”
“We’ll get it all right,” Billing declared. “I know half the radio hams east of the Mississippi -not to mention out West! They’ll all be glad to help us.”
Tom gave the radio chief an excited bear hug. “George, old boy, you’re a genius! As the designer, I rate a kick for not thinking of that myself!”
The entire group hurried to the Enterprises communications center. Here, Billing began
110 TRIPHIBIAN ATOMICAR
beaming out a general call for assistance to all radio amateurs. Almost immediately, the hams began checking in by call letters. By the time Chow wheeled in a supper of hot roast beef sandwiches, more than a hundred responses had been received. Many promised to alert their friends and amateur club groups.
Billing explained that a high-flying plane over Enterprises would beam out a “request” pulse once per minute, beginning at seven o’clock and continuing until a fix had been obtained. Hank was dispatched to perform this job in a helijet.
Tom glanced nervously at his watch as the hands ticked closer to seven.
“Relax, skipper.” Bud chuckled and slapped his friend on the back. “How can we miss?”
“We can’t, unless our enemy has tinkered with the homing device.”
Bud’s face grew taut. “Cut it out. Now you’ve got my pulse missing!”
Within minutes after seven o’clock, more than a dozen radio bearings had been received. Dilling, too, had picked up the response pulse, faint but clear.
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122