Two people were huddled together at a table dominated by computer lights, when one of them shouted excitedly, “There it is! Keep that frequency and go to sequence five on the CAWFEWAS”.
The lights flashed and a recording system automatically switched on as it always did when CAWFEWAS was activated.
“Can you tell me what’s being picked up or is it ‘gobble-de-gook’ again?”
“I don’t know at the moment. Let CAWFEWAS do the job, we will know in a few minutes whether we have a good hit!”
This was the latest trial to see if the new recording had solved previous problems as every time they made an amendment another problem arose. The year was 2029 and over the past two years Sue Kinder and Keith Machintosh had worked on CAWFEWAS. The idea had started as a joke, when Sue said to Keith, “Wouldn’t it be good if we could pick up conversations out of the airwaves?”
This started Keith thinking and within two months he had come up with a prototype enabling conversations to be intercepted from the airwaves. When he showed it to Sue, she reacted with scepticism.
“I only said it as a joke – I didn’t think you’d do anything.” But Keith persisted. Together, they developed the program, with Keith the computer expert and Sue the Audiologist. Over time they’d had many setbacks and nearly gave up. Their friends thought that they were mad and would eventually give up. This did not happen.
The first breakthrough came after eighteen months, when they picked up a partial speech by Churchill, it was fragmented and did not make sense. They continued to monitor the airwaves until one night they picked up dialogue that was cohesive.
“What do you think?”, Keith said to Sue. After a couple of minutes Sue turned to Keith and said, “It is Margaret Thatcher speaking at a party conference. I don’t know what year but it seems to be intact”.
“Can you pick up any other conversations from that time, so we can identify the year?”
“No, I can’t find any threads. I don’t think it was a full speech. We need to adjust the frequency and let CAWFEWAS do its magic”.
Sue and Keith amended the frequency and scanned the airwaves, but picked up nothing new. “Well let’s play the recording and see if we can work out what year it was.”
They worked through the night, but got nowhere.
That evening, they met up to continue. The next two months did not reveal any more and they were getting disheartened. After all the ramifications of their work would ratify history. CAWFEWAS (Collect Audio Waves From Ether Worldwide And Synchronise) was what would convince the world.
They were at the table and about to finish when Sue screamed, “I have something! It’s very clear! It’s the Queen’s Coronation in Westminster Abbey from 1953”.
Keith looked at Sue and said, “This is it. We have done it and it makes sense!”
Another sound came from the speakers. It sounded like a laugh. They stared at each other and adjusted the controls but the laughter continued with a voice coming across saying, “Don’t be fooled! It can’t be achieved because airwaves just disintegrate. Only recordings survive, CAWFEWAS (Caution Aware Wanton Friends End Witless Audio Scams)”.
With that Keith and Sue just looked at each other and said, “We have been conned by our so-called friends!”
Copyright, ########, 2023
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