By Angela Hatton
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkms/local-wkms-935953.mp3
Murray, KY – Lovers of the British claymation duo Wallace and Gromit know the two from their short films and movies, including the 2005 release Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Wallace is a wacky amateur inventor and a lover of cheese. Gromit is his silent dog, who often keeps Wallace out of trouble. For its latest Wallace and Gromit production, parent company Aardman travelled around the world to find inventors and inventions that are ahead of their time. One film crew landed in Murray, Kentucky. As Angela Hatton reports, they came to test a wireless telephone invented by a local melon farmer over a hundred years ago.
It's take two on the set outside a barn at Murray State University's South Farm. The director offers a few pointers before Host Jem Stansfield gives the scene another go. Because Wallace and Gromit are plasticine figurines, Stansfield plays the show's "roving reporter."
"Wallace and Gromit are the main stars of the show. They've got a little studio that they've made where they report on a world of Invention. I got out and report on that world of invention. It gets broadcast back to their studio and they comment on it."
For this segment in the series, the small film crew, along with Murray volunteers, plan to recreate local legend Nathan B. Stubblefield's wireless communication system.
"Stubblefield, I think, is one of the great nearly-men . . . '" says Director Roger Powers.
"It's a really interesting story, and have things been a little differently, you might he might be mentioned in the same breath at Tesla and Marconi, and other inventors like that. He had a dream, he had a passion. He really believed in what he did."
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Stubblefield conducted experiments on forms of wireless communication. Murray State Journalism and Mass Communication Department Chair Dr. Bob Lochte is Aardman's Stubblefield expert. Lochte says the team is only testing one of two Stubblefield systems.
"Ground conduction, or earth conduction system, which is the one that worked best."
Here's the basic idea. An electric speaker system connects to two wires, which connect to two metal rods driven into the ground. When someone speaks into the system's mouthpiece, electricity travels through the ground to two metal rods somewhere else and comes out as sound. Stubblefield and witnesses claimed in one demonstration to have transmitted nearly a mile.
But the Aardman crew isn't entirely convinced it can be done. They've gathered a hodge-podge of wireless receivers, a child's guitar amp, a karaoke machine, and a laptop. The location for this experiment is a corn field. Director Powers asks participants to predict the experiment's outcome. Most are confident.
"What do you think?" "I think it will work. I think it worked once before and we can figure out how to make it work again."
But not all feel that way.
"Yeah, I wouldn't think it would work." "Would you be impressed if it did?" "I'd be amazed." "Yeah, really excited."
The suspense is short-lived.
"Is that better?"
The system, while not always clear, works. That's no surprise to Bob Lochte. He and a friend tested Stubblefield's ground conduction methods themselves several years ago, but on a much smaller scale.
"We never were trying to achieve any great distance or anyth We weren't trying to stretch the technology to its limits the way the crew from Aardman did."
The Aardman crew stretches the experiment to nearly 300 yards, though that's still well under Stubblefield's one mile mark.
Laymen inventors like Stubblefield don't garner the public eye as much as they did in the 19th century. Lochte says Stubblefield played a small part in that golden era of the inventor.
"For one thing, they were good copy. I mean, inventions were leading to tremendous commercial success in that period in American history. But also I think there's something more fundamental in that we really invented a country, and it would be natural for us to celebrate inventors."
Wallace and Gromit's World of Invention is airing now in Britain. The episode featuring Stubblefield airs November 24, but those in the United States will have to wait till it hits DVD. A North American television distributor hasn't picked up the show.