The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-08-18
TWO NEEDS IN TELEPHONY
Two Million Dollars for the Man
to Supply Them.
ALL ASPIRING INVENTORS
Telephone Quadruplex and a Repeater
Are Wanted - They Would Work
a Great Revolution in Long
Distance Speaking.

| any yOuuS inventor VINO wants
to earn 100000 in cash quickly can
secure it by presenting the Erie Tele-
| phone company with two improvements
it wants in telephony. Charles j. Gid
den, president of that company, has
recently offered through the columns of
the electrical papers to pay $1,000, 900
for telephone quadruplex and anoth-
er $1,000, 900 for a telephone repeater
The Erie Telephone company is a large
and wealthy concern. 1t operates ex-
changes in the cities and towns of half
a dozen states and maintains a cobweb
of long-distance lines
The electrical world is not greatly ex-
cited over Mr. Glidden's offer, although
it is probably the greatest cash prize
ever set up for ingenuity. 1t has long
been known that two successful instru-
ments of the kind described would bring
their inventor a quick and splendid
fortune, for they would effect enormous
savings in the construction of ex-
changes and equally great ones in the
operation of telephones. Hundreds of
inventors have wrestled with the prob
lens involved and although repeaters
ana quads, so-called, have been evolved
they fail utterly to answer their pur-
pose.
In theory 1000 angles can dance on
the point of a pin and in practice one
wire, acting as common carrier. may
be made to carry divisions and subdi-
visions OF the electric current. This can
be done in telegraphy and the fact
makes possible the quadrupex, which
gives two transmitting and two receiv-
ing circuits to one wire, or increases its
capacity four times. But telephone
circuit is a wholly different thing 1t
requires strong battery to work a re-
lay at the end of thousand-mile tele-
graph wire. Only a faint current is
needed to carry the vibrations of the
diaphragm under the voice to the re-
ce1Ver at the end of telephone wire
If the battery exceeds certain strength
the vibrations are blurred and words
become difficult to distinguish No
battery at all is used to ring the bell.
The whirling around of the magnets
within its field generates the current
that does that. The telegraph circuit is
an open and closed circuit; the tele-
phone is what is known as an undu-
lating circuit. The theory of the quad
ruplex implies certain mechanical
movements. to make which power in
the form of current is required
Only the mildest current-as is ex-
plained-Can be used in telephoning.
The loss of current by induction and
other causes makes it necessary to in
sert repeaters in all long telegraph
wires. The overland circuit between
Chicago and San Francisco would not
be possible without repeaterS.
Even the lines between Chicago and
New York have to be reinforced by re-
peaters, for the function of the latter
instrument is to pick up the weakened
dots and dashes and send them along
with their original strength. Current
and an open and closed circuit again
are necessary to operate a repeater.
Telephone experts have attempted
many plans to overcome the difficulties
in the way of duplicating the telegraph
quad and repeater in their service One
of these which has had more or less
trial involves the use of a series of re-
sistanCe coils as a reinforcement. but
it is not markedly successful. The
practical effect of the absence of a
good repeater is to require losg dis
lance telephone lines to be built of very
heavy copper wire. The size of the car
rier increases in a rapid ratio as the
line lengthens until the investment for
copper becomes almost prohibitory, and
probably in 1900 or 1,500 miles.
If a telephone repeater which would
work like a telegraph repeater We're in
existence it would probably be possible
for a man in New York to talk to an
other in San Francisco over a wire of
small gauge. Long distance wires
would be strung over every section of
the United States.
Rates would probably be lowered and
the use of the long distance telephone
by the public increased many fold,
with a corresponding increase in the
company's receipts. A telephone quad
would be of even greater Importance to
telephone companies. 1t would mean
that the wire run to one subscribers
telephone could be made to serve three
others. The Chicago Telephone COM
pany. for example, could enormously
enlarge the number of its subscribers,
with the additional expense of tele-
phones and enlarged switchboards and
construction wlrk-by far the greater
part of the investment. The construc-
ition and operation of telephone ex-
changes would be revolutiOnized by a
practicable quad and repeater, Even
Bell officials. mute as they generally
are, do not hesitate to say their COM
pany would pay any price for them.