Author
He began writing for the technical pres about wireless telegraphy and telephony and other scientific topics in 1901. He wrote articles about wireless telephony for Electrical World, Scientific American, Encyclopedia Americana, and other encyclopedias. He wrote a great many technical articles and books on wireless telegraphy and wireless telephony in the first decade of the 20th century. He wrote about 100 books on scientific and technical subjects, hobbies, and sports, and over 500 articles in technical and scientific magazines and journals, well into the 1940s. His 1913 "Manual of Wireless Telegraphy and telephony" gives a detailed and illustrated explanation of his electric arc wireless telephone transmitter and receiver, along with a general coverage of the state of the art. He wrote scientific adventure series novels such as "Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator(1919)" which told of the training and adventures of a 15 year old wireless amateur. Many of his books, such as "The Boy Scientist," (1925) had lots of illustrations and few equations, with an emphasis on "hands-on" experimentation, at a level intended for high school students. After discussing the "Einstein Theory," Collins tells his readers how to build a spectroscope, a radio, and a x-ray machine for home experimentation. Collins encouraged his readers to use their home-built x-ray machine to examine their own bone structure with a fluoroscope. His failure to warn of the dangers of experimentation with x-rays was in line with popular interest in the invisible rays and lack of understanding of the dangers. He was the original author of "The Radio Amateur's Hand Book," in 1922, a handbook for radio "hams" which was reprinted in at least 15 revised editions over the next 61 years. The late Alan MacDiarmid, who received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2000, said that Collins' 1924 book "The Boy Chemist" so inspired him as a boy in New Zealand that he kept renewing it from the public library for almost a full year to complete all the experiments.
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