The advocate. [volume] (Charleston, W. Va.) 1901-1913, 1907-09-19
! 4 BY WIRE
Story of the Telephone
s5ss. AS it is Today
sTRIALSANDTROUBLES

Washington, Sept, 1S.-Some fine
\ day In the indefinitely distant sweet
q bye-and-bye twill be possible to tel
r ephone from Washington clear out
StO the Pacific coast. Almost every
blessed week in the present century
has seen some inspired product of
modern creative genius advance from
one to another of the successive
steps that divide the impossible from
the practicable, and it isn't reason
able to suppose that the comparative
ly simple problems which remain to
be solved before ocean-to-ocean tel
ephony is assured will battle the best
brains of the country for many years
more.
~ Even now the long-distance wires
: stretch almost from coast to coast
only small gap this side Of the
Rocky mountains remaining to be
spanned by the current-carrying cop
per cables. But this doesn't mean
that when the gap is bridged coast
forecast telephony will be an accom-
plished fact. Not by long shot
That's just the point that many
otherwise intelligent people don't
seem to understand. Why, some of
them really seem to think that long
distance telephony may be achieved
by merely hitching together a num-
Der of local plants built in all sorts
of ways and out Of all sorts of ma
!. terial. AS matter Of fact it has
taken the Bell companies good
many years, crowded years, to build
and perfect the present long distance
system, and 1t cannot by any means
be duplicated merely by joining a
bunch Of isolated plants.
This Is Parkway Chatting.
BY the hardest sort of work-the
sort of work that is done from the
neck up-telephone experts have
made 1t possible to talk, under ad-
vantageous conditions, over about
1900 miles of wire This is just 100
times the distance over which the
first Bell company said that it's pat
rons could talk successfully, the
prospectus of the original company
placing the limit Of efficient service
at twenty miles. When this is put
away in the mind, together with the
fact that telephone development had
its beginning about twenty-five years
ago, the Idea of coast-to-coast COM
munication in the not too-far-away
future doesn't seem so wild and
WOODY after all.
But the long-distance folks don't
catch all the trouble by long shot,
for while they're straining every
nerve to solve the problem of trans
mission over lines of great length,
the local service companies are busy
every minute building up and keep
Ing In shape their organization Of
employees so that the exactions of a
public which demands instantaneous
Or uninterrupted service may be met
in every particular.
Some Possible Kinks.
And 1t is really wonderful the way
the perfected machine of animate
and inanimate parts responds to all
demands upon it. When two sta
lions in a city are in connection the
wires joining them pass through
overhead and underground cables, in
and out of buildings, and the Lord
only knows where else. Often it
takes number Of operators to con-
meet up the different sections going
to make up the complete line be-
tween the two stations that are
hooked up for chat
Taking it for granted that the tel
ephone operators in the various cx-
changes properly perform their
tunctions-and really the public has
mighty few kicks coming against
the OperatOrs-thc main problem
with which the local company has to
contend is how to maintain perfect
conditions on the wires. There's
the kernel Of this nut right there.
TO do this the company must pro-
= vide many different classes Of highly
4 skilled mechanics and electricians
In the central office test men Of tech
~-ntca training and practical exper-
fence sit around, ready to jump al
: any trouble that may turn up. They
have a sensitive, shivery aDDarat us
( by means of which they are able tc
: locate to within couple Of feet OF
SO the troublesome conditions inter.
fering with the telephone users con
\ versation.
E& If the kink happens to be in thu
switchboard wiring, switchboard
II Etrouble men" are ready on a mo
y ment's notice to straighten thing out
ssi If the trouble is on the aerial line
q lineman Is ready, with gloves on hi
hand and hooks on his feet, to do
q 1ittle garden and fancy climbing. |
1.-THE trouble is in the underground o
- hp-in-the-air cable, splicers must b.
& ready to rip open the wire bundle, o
sA II necessary remove an entire sectioJ
4 OF the cable.