The main individual mentioned in this review is Allen Wood, Jr. (amateur radio station 1DF). Only the last names of the other two persons are stated, but, based on contemporary amateur callbook listings, one was most likely Frank Wigglesworth (1DA), while "Heyward" may have been Edward E. Hayward, Jr. (1DP).
Boston Sunday Post, December 14, 1919, page 43:
Wireless Music in Their Home
__________
Two Winchester Men Who Turn Invention to Social Use
__________
"Hello ...... Hello ...... 1DF ........ 1DF ........ give us a little jazz, will you, Wood?
"Hello ...... Hello ...... 1DF ........ 1DF ........ have you any of Caruso there? ...... or Galli-Curci? My wife and kids are waiting."
"Hello ...... Hello ...... 1DF ........ is that you, Wood? Let's have a waltz, will you? We want to dance."
The questions came pattering in on the wireless.
1DF is the name by which Allen Wood's wireless station at Winchester is known to all who search the ether for its winged words.
Wood, in his shirt sleeves, sat in the bright light of his switch board. His face was tense as the messages ticked in.
____
At his side a victrola played merrily into what looked like an ordinary telephone transmitter. But it wasn't an ordinary telephone transmitter. The wires led up the side of the house to the antilae that stretched their thin fingers out into the night.
And out of those fingers, into the great rainy expanse of the dark, went trembling the music of the victrola borne on the wings of the ether.
Truly the night was filled with music. Then, if ever there was, there was music in the air.
Allen Wood, Jr., has one of the first amateur wireless telephones in the East. During the war the wireless telephone played a big part. All the ships of Uncle Sam were fitted up with a set. The airplanes and balloons found it almost indispensable, Now that the war is gone, the wireless telephone begins to play its part in civil life.
A dull, lifeless night it was, with its blowing rain and mist, that I went out to Winchester. But up in the cozy bright room, with its shining coils and twinkling bulbs, it was anything but dull. Wood and two friends of his worked over the switch-board as the music soared out and the messages tickled in. Like three boys with a new toy, they were.
Wood took his place at the transmitter.
"Hello," he called, as you do to 'Central,' "is this the Harvard Union? Who's on tonight? Do you remember me--Wood--I taught statics over at the Radio School last year. . . ."
And so on. He chatted across to Cambridge. Then he talked to Technology, to the Navy Yard--to about everybody who wanted to listen.
Then they started the victrola again. The "atmosphere" quieted down. It seemed that every operator in New England was alert to listen. Those of them who have become weary of listening to the eternal tick-tick, tick-a-tick, of the telegraph must find it gratifying. When the concerts are over they telegraph in their thanks.
1DF is the magic call in amateur wireless. And 1DF seemed to represent all the romance, all the wizardry of modern science. If you are one of those who think that this is an age of unimaginative materialism take a peep into Wood's room out at Winchester.
From that little room you can send your words of folly or of wisdom out into the sunshine of the day, or the dark of the night; you can talk over the cities and towns, over the rivers and the sea. Given a receiver the man who labors over his desk in the shadow of the custom house, or he who roams in the shadow of the trees of the countryside, could hear you speak. Is that not wizardry? Is that not romance?
These enthusiasts are not boys. They are men. Allen Wood, Jr., is the son of Allen Wood, Sr., of the firm of Wood, Putnum & Wood of Boston. During the war he was an instructor in the United States Naval Radio School at Cambridge. Wigglesworth is the president of the Atlantic Radio Company. During the war he was a junior lieutenant in the Naval Aviation Corps. And Heyward, who is an old Marconi operator, saw active service as an operator aboard Uncle Sam's battleships in the Atlantic. They all have men's work, and their existence seems to be wrapped up in the future of wireless.
I asked just how it sounded on an other receiver at a distance. Wigglesworth offered to carry me over to an other station about half a mile away. I accepted. So we hopped into his machine and went.
After driving about in the rain for a while, we stopped in front of an apartment house. One would never think that it, too, had one who was probing into the ether for its secrets. We had scarcely entered a cosy little flat on the first floor when we heard the strains of a violin. It was Elman playing "Souvenir," I think. I looked about, but could not discover from where the music came. Then the occupant of the flat, a cheerful fellow, showed us, with a smile, into an inner room. Before a little board in the corner of the room lay the receivers, and out of them came the thrill of Elman's violin.