After many months of mysterious transmissions, the "Mystery Set" of Paris has at last been located. And even now, it retains some of that enigmatic and puzzling atmosphere which envelops all mysteries. For fully a month, the mysterious transmitter, hidden somewhere in the big capital of France, baffled the efforts of the police, the military, and the amateurs, who all bent their energies toward its location. Yankee ingenuity, however, kept the radio field guessing, and it wasn't until a few weeks ago that the entire story of the "Zero Post" was revealed.

It could be said that the beginning of this remarkable set was in 1910, when R. Gouraud, a young amateur in New York City, began experimenting with radio. He went through the usual school of the amateur, and followed the progress of the science closely, until the beginning of the War, when he went to France in 1916 with the American Ambulance Corps. He was later transferred, upon our country's entry in the conflict, to the aviation section at Avord. After the war, he chose to stay in France, and, once settled, he plunged deeper than ever into his hobby.

Gouraud's first appearance into the limelight happened over a year ago, when he announced that he was using a rather unusual kind of radiating system with which to send out signals to the French amateurs. It was a four-wire prismatic cage, about 30 feet long, strung 40 ft. above the ground, and attached to a counterpoise. The distance between the counterpoise and the aerial was about 25 ft., and consisted of a four-wire arrangement. But, unlike other counterpoises, this one was not placed under the aerial but on the same level with it. Thus the effective height of the "ground" connection was also that of the aerial, and he had, theoretically at least, no ground to his set. Great success attended the use of this system.

These experiments in transmitting led the young American to further work, and he attempted further developments in the transmitting and receiving fields. In 1922, he developed a combination sending and receiving set which was very practical. It was so arranged that it required no switch to transfer over from sending to the receiving position. In other words, a conversation could be carried on exactly as with an ordinary telephone,--each person equipped with such a set being able to talk back and forth without interruption. The first set was crude enough, compared to the many refinements which were developed later, and incorporated into the mystery set.

So, in a dark corner of the radio laboratory of the young experimenter was born the "Zero Post," which created such a storm last spring, and caused so much furor among radio fans and engineers as well. It was a transmitter of 800 watts input, and workable on wavelengths up to 1000 meters.

Cutting in boldly one night, as everyone was tuned in to listen to the Eiffel Tower, Gouraud opened up on his new set, and announced slowly in English that he was an American station testing. He talked, sang, and then announced that there would be further entertainment the next evening, and, with the usual "Bon soir mesdames et messieurs," closed up for the evening.

Transmitting without a license is, of course, strictly prohibited in this country as it is in France, and Gouraud had no license. He had hit upon this idea, however, to see how far his set would carry.

The results came soon enough. The daily newspapers in Paris came forward with long stories of spy stations, others maintained it was a publicity stunt, and a third that it was an English station. Suffice it to say that the Paris ether was surcharged with excitement.

The young inventor continued his broadcasts for several days. Occasionally he would put on a record, and give his audience some jazz music, presumably of American origin. The newspapers began to publish regularly his "program," and to give out information as to the wavelength, hours of transmission, etc. Gouraud must have been Chuckling to himself!

Soon, however, the military and the police took a hand in the matter, and automobiles equipped with direction finders began to scour the Paris streets and the suburbs. They located the set as far as the very block in which it was, but there the scent ended. They could not locate the mysterious "Zero Post."

The inventor himself came out with all of the details of the installation, and thus ended the career of one of the greatest radio mysteries that French radio fans ever beheld.

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