Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1915-10-07
VOICE CARRIED
ACROSS CONTINENT
AMERICAN TELEPHONE & TELE-
GRAPH COMPANY ACCOMPLISH
Es REMARKABLE TEST.
FROM NEW YORK TO FRISCO
New Invention Makes Connection
With Wireless Smoothly When
Telephone President Talks
to San Francisco, Cal.

New York.-Theodore N. Vail, pres
1dent of the American Telephone &
Telegraph company, picked up an in
strument from his desk in his office
and said in quite an ordinary tone:
Hello, Carly, This is Vail talking.
Can you hear me-"
In the wireless tower of the United
States navy yard at Mare Island, Cal,
which is in San Francisco bay, and
somethinc like 5000 miles from here,
John ]. Carly, chief engineer of the
corporation and leading scientist in
the business of communication,
caught the voice of his friend.
YES, l hear you! This is fine! This
is wonderful" he said.
Another feat of distance oblitera-
ton had been accomplished. The
sound of Wallis voice had crossed the
continent, had spanned the thousand
leagues of farm land, prairie and
mountain, almost entirely through the
air, almost entirely without the use
OF wires. The wireless telephone, long
sought, had been proved a complete
success.
Wallis words went from his office
over a wire, to the top of the United
States naval radio tower at Arlington,
Va, which is $50 feet high. From
that point, without interruption, they
IaonaJ intn Tho air and cpa1 m tho
top of the naval radio station at Mare
Island, which is $50 feet above sea
level. There Carly heard them.
1t was more than a wireless tele-
phone test. 1t was a test Of wire, then
wireless communication.
Had there been a radio tower of
sufficient height in New York City,
the message might have been sent en-
tirely through the air. But that would
have been easier to do than what &C.
tually was done.
Carty's reply to the president of the
company was made over a wire tele-
phone, because there was no wireless
sending apparatus at Mare Island. If
LllCIC lldu pCCh ollSy anu q WV I AClCg
the entire conversation would have
been through the air.
But-as if to make the thing more
amazing than it really was-here was
Vail in New York talking to his en-
gineer across 5000 miles of space,
and the receiving end of the home in
strument hearing his reply over 5000
miles of wire.
"What a glorious SUGGEST" ex-
claimed Vail as he listened to Carty's
voice. Il want to congratulate you
and the others who have brought it
about" This went by wire and air.
"Wha next?" answered the engi-
neer. 1--WE can't tell, eh?" This came
by wire.
Vail spoke certain sentences
through the air and asked Carly to
repeat them to show he was actually
hearing. TO the president of the com
pany and to a score or so of others
who sat close to him, each with a re-
ceiver at his ear, came back the
words, repeated exactly.
There was no doubt that the new
marvel had been wrought success
fully.
It was the elimination of many
months Of tests at lesser distances. 1t
became known at the New York Of
fees of the telephone and telegraph
company that in August Carly had
talked with Lieut.. Cranshaw, an army
officer stationed at Panama, which is
1900 miles away.
The discovery is of tremendous sig
nificance in the work of long-distance
communication. For instance, il
would have been much easier, 1t was
declared by Carly from San Fran
cisco, to have talked to London, Paris
or Berlin than to talk to San Fran
cisco. Were 1t not for the war that
very thing might have been done.
1t will eventually be a very simple
matter, Carly said, to call up a FRIEND
who Is on a ship In midocean anC
have a conversation with him. And
eventually, again, there will be ne
place-desert, mountain top, jungle
which will not have its telephone sta
ton, because the stringing of wires
Carly explained, will not be neces
Eary. The remotest hamlet will sim
ply have its wireless telephone.