Greycastle, Neverwinter City.
Reports regarding the Grand Duke Island battle and the situation in Wolfheart were delivered to Roland two days later.
Compared to the week it used to take for letters to travel from Eternal Winter City in the Northern Region to Neverwinter, the speed of communication was a huge improvement. Whether it was the short-distance express delivery by flying messengers or the long-distance voyages of steamboats running day and night, they were now integrated into a message transmission system. Every important message was equipped with dedicated personnel, dedicated ships, and even aircraft—and this particular report was sent by Tilly.
"Thank you for your hard work." Roland offered a Chaos Drink solicitously. "How is the situation over there?"
"You'd know if you read the report, wouldn't you?" Tilly took the cup, glancing at him. "Why are you being so attentive? Are you feeling guilty about something? Is there still no progress on my personal aircraft?"
"Pfft..." Nightingale's stifled laughter came from behind.
"How could that be? I've already selected the most suitable option from several plans. As soon as Anna can free up some time, we can start the prototype trial production immediately." Roland said quickly, "You know, several projects have reached the most critical stage recently, and she's really too busy."
"For Anna's sake, I won't hold it against you this time, brother." Tilly took a big gulp of the drink, wiped her mouth, and walked towards the office door. "The Seagull is about to return, I'll go back to the Air Knight Academy first."
"You're not staying even for a day?" He was slightly surprised.
"No choice, currently only the Seagull and Andrea can threaten the Lord of the Sky on the front lines, and... I don't want to miss any chance for revenge." Tilly waved her hand behind her back. "Then I'm leaving, brother."
Watching the door close again, Nightingale sighed softly, "Everyone... is working hard."
If possible, I'd rather they put their efforts into other areas, not war. Such thoughts surfaced in Roland's mind, but he didn't voice them—because before the War of Divine Will ends, before the fate of mankind is decided, no one can put down this burden. Saying this now would be nothing but an evasion of responsibility, with no other meaning.
He was silent for a moment before tearing open the report seal.
After reading all the reports, Roland finally understood the meaning of Tilly's words. Being able to issue a timely retreat order and successfully ambush an elusive devil lord on the vast sea, Edith Kant and Andrea were undoubtedly the biggest contributors to this battle. But also, the sender of that crucial piece of information could not be ignored—without this person's desperate act, there would be no subsequent victory.
"What are you planning to do?" This matter had obviously attracted Nightingale's attention as well.
"Regardless of the original intention of sending out this secret letter, this person's name and achievements should not be forgotten." Roland said in a deep voice. If it were his previous life, it would be almost impossible to find an unidentified informant after a long war. The tombstone would probably only bear an inscription like "Your name is unknown, your deeds will be remembered forever." However, witches can change this unavoidable situation, allowing every warrior who has contributed to the fate of mankind to be recorded in the annals of history. "When the Eternal Winter Kingdom returns to the control of the First Army, let 'Black Money' cooperate with Asha to confirm his identity and origins."
If the murderer who killed him was still alive at that time, he would inevitably escape the severe punishment of the law.
Nightingale nodded, "It would be great if the kind of equipment that can communicate across thousands of miles could be manufactured sooner."
"Unfortunately, that's not my forte." Roland couldn't help but rub his forehead. The thought of the circuit diagrams he had forcibly memorized gave him a headache.
"Now you can finally understand how I felt during the exam." Nightingale covered her mouth and said.
"But even if it's difficult, I wouldn't fall asleep on the desk like someone, and end up handing in a blank paper," Roland glared at her, "In fact, I'm almost finished manufacturing the principle prototype."
That's right, although progress was extremely slow, the radio project had never stopped.
Like the piston engine, after considering the many options from the Greycastle Design Bureau, he decided to select two of them to proceed with simultaneously.
And these two were the spark transmitter and the amplitude modulation transmitter.
The former was the ancestor of radio communication, with an extremely simple structure and no electronic components. It only used a transformer coil to increase the voltage to charge a capacitor until the voltage applied to the spark gap was high enough to break through the air, releasing an electric spark. This part was quite similar to a lighter, except that the current transmitted by the spark was not wasted, but oscillated repeatedly between the capacitor and the inductor, causing it to generate electromagnetic waves, which were then transmitted through the antenna.
In other words, as long as the power supply is controlled to open and close, intermittent electromagnetic waves can be emitted—the listener can translate them into corresponding signals according to the length of the tone. The so-called long and short telegraph codes originated from this.
Although it still sounded a bit confusing, Roland adopted the most clever method, which was to first let the Greycastle Design Bureau's radio project team use readily available materials to create a usable object, and then copy the object.
For example, sandwiching two pieces of tin foil up and down in a stack of oil paper and sealing it with wax is a simple high-voltage capacitor.
And the inductor is even simpler, it's nothing more than winding wires around an insulating tube.
Roland could complete these devices on his own without considering mass production or specifications. Although they seemed both bulky and crude compared to those packaged industrial products the size of a fingernail, the effect was basically the same. Once the transmission tower was built, he could try to conduct the first wireless transmission experiment of this era.
However, the disadvantages of the spark transmitter were also obvious.
Even if it passed the test, to put it into formal use, a code that matches the kingdom's writing would have to be designed, and the training of telegraph operators and receivers would also take a lot of time. In addition, the spark transmitter has an extremely wide spectrum, and only one transmitter can work in the same range, which is not suitable for use by front-line intelligence personnel.
Therefore, his ultimate goal was still an amplitude modulation transmitter that uses vacuum tubes to amplify signals.
And the biggest advantage of the latter is—it can directly transmit voice signals.
From a principle point of view, radio communication and telephones are essentially very similar, both converting the oscillation of sound into changes in current or electromagnetic waves, and then converting them back into sound after long-distance transmission to the other end. It's just that the frequency of the human voice is too low, making the wavelength of the signal wave too long, and the longer the wavelength, the larger the required antenna size—if the voice signal is directly transmitted, the antenna length would probably have to reach more than one hundred kilometers, which is an impossible thing in engineering.
So, to transmit voice, it must ride on a higher frequency carrier wave.
This is the so-called modulation.
After the new waveform mixed together is received, the listener must also filter out the high-frequency wave through a series of demodulation methods, leaving only the meaningful low-frequency wave, to convert it into the final voice.
Once the amplitude modulation transmitter is successful, both the First Army and the intelligence agencies will truly have real-time communication capabilities.
For war, its significance is self-evident.