Norwich bulletin., 1916-02-22
TO MANE THE LINE TALK Was the Real Problem That Confront cd the Telephone Engineers.

It was perhaps little more difficult to string wires from Denver to San Francisco than from Norwich to Den yer. but the actual construction of the line was the least of the engineers troubles. His real problem was to make the line talk" to send some thing S.000 miles with a breath as the motive power. In effect. that voy- age of the voice across the contin- ent is instantaneous; if its speed could could be accurately measured a fifteenth of a second would probably be nearly exact. If 1t were possible for sound, to carry that far. hello" uttered in Norwich and travelling through the air without the aid of wires and electricity. would not reach San Francisco until four hours later. The telephone not only transmits the speech but it transmits it thousands of times faster than its own natural speed.
 But, while the telephone is breaking speed records, 1t must also guarantee safe delivery to these millions of lit- tie passages it carries every few min- utes in the way of sound waves created at the rate of 2.100 second.
 The engineer in telephony cannot against metal disk changes air waves into electrical currents and these electrical currents, millions of which are required for a single con- versation. must be carried across the continent and produce the same Tn Norwich. His is task so fine as to be gigantic.
 Across Thirteen States.
 The ocean to ocean wires stretch 1 across thirteen states. Leaving San Francieco the line loops into Salt l Lake City after covering ITO miles of territory. and then is strung to Den- yer 5S0 miles. The next stretch is from Denver 70 Omaha, 5s5 miles and from Omaha tthe line runs into Chi cago after travelling 500 miles From the Windy City there are two branch es-one going to Pittsburgh, 545 miles and then to tNew York, 390 miles, and ] then going to Norwich. The demon stration was given over the New Yorl, Pittsburgh and Chicago route. There are two physical circuits and a pf1an- tom circuit derived by means of fo,1l hard-drawn copper wires, each g,40(
 miles in length. Tn each of these cir
 cults are two wires each .165 inch ir diameter. One circuit of two wires this being a transmission wire only Each physical circuit, in addition. re. 1 uuires some 13,000 miles of fine hair. | like, insulated wire, four -thousandth.
 of an inch in diameter
 This wire Is used for loading coils | l points along the line to reinforce tn,
 currents To support the line a tota of 120,000 poles are used Along thil
 line there are employed force of l.. | 200 men who are always available
 anyone or all of whom can instantl, be moved from any of the headquart, CTS. The Bell system employs 160, 900 men and women.
 To Frisco In Less Than a Second. l It is interesting to note the develop 1 ment of transportation and communi cation across the continent. h 1S49 San Francisco was reached b, l prairie schooners in five months travel. In 1859 sailing vessels round ed the Horn to San Francisco iron
 New York in three months. In 1S6 the first Union Pacific engine work ed its way by rail from New York t
 San Francisco in twenty days. i
 1915. by rail route from Norwich t
 San Francisco in conjunction wit
 the Overland Limited 1t required fou
 and a half days and also in 1915 tn
 transcontinental telephone voic
 highway sends the little talk trains fl
 perfect safety to San Francisco fror Norwich and back again in less tha one second.