The New York herald., 1922-10-08
TOSTART AUTOMATIC
TELEPHONE SERVICE
Pennsylvania Exchange Will
Begin Operation of New
System Saturday.
DIALlNG NOT INTRICATE
Engineers Believe Method Will
Save Much of Delay of Call
ing Numbers.

Automatic telephones will be placed
in operation in New York city for the
first time on midnight of next Satur-
day in the Pennsylvania exchange, and
will be extended thereafter to other
central offices as soon as the new
equipment is installed. For the pres
ent the operation will be a combnatio
Of manual and automatic. and it is
estimated it will take ten to fifteen
years to standardze the entire system
upon an automatic basis
Engineers as well as the general pub.
lie are watching with interest the work.
ing of the new dial system. which will
ultimately replace the vocal method o.
obtaining numbers. Officials of the
telephone company have had an extra
crew of operators working for several
months In the Telephone Building at
210 West Thirty-sxth street sending
and receiving fifty thousand trial mes
sages a day in preparation for the new
undertaking
They are confident the new method
will not only work with accuracy but a
great deal of the delay and incon-
venience associated with the vocal sys-
tenn will be eliminated The tests have
been made under the most rigorous con-
ditions and represent the elimination
OF fifteen or twenty years of expert
ment on the part of some of the greatest
er gineers in the country.
A corps of experienced operators have
been canvassing the Pennsylvania SUBJ
scribers giving them instructions with
the new dial machines and the tele-
phone engineers say if the public uses
them with reasonable intelligence at
the outset the marvelously intricate ap-
paratus at the Thirty sixth street build
ing will do the rest. To guard against
errors and confusion in dialing. spe-
cial group of operators has been placed
in the central office to answer calls OF
perplexed subscribers and straighten
out any difficulties that may arise
Lest subscribers feel that in being
out of vocal touch with the central
operator they are adrift upon an un-
charted sea of crossed wires telephone
officials give assurance that you can't
be hung up" II the subscriber dials
the wrong number or fails to manipu-
late the apparatus properly he Will
within a few seconds connect himSelt
with one of the trouble operators.
who will set the matter straight.
AS demonstrated yesterday at the
central office dialing is simplicity itself.
You have a movable disk with ten fin
ger holes representing the numerals
from one to nine and hole for zero
and operator" The Gial is spun one
turn for each number. after the ex-
change has been designated In the same
way by dialing the letters that appear
in each division according to the finger
holes. The time lost for the operator to
answer is practically eliminated. since
dialing can be commenced as soon as
the low humming sound. known as the
"dial-tone" is heard. which is almost
simultaneous with lifting the receiver
Three capital letters designate the eX-
change in the new telephone book, and
il Is these letters that are used in dial
ing. Bryant is "Bry"; Worth, "Wor.
etc.
The apparatus which makes possible
this new method of central office con-
troll has been installed on the fourth
the fifth floors of the Telephone Build
ing in West Thirty-siXth street. and
represents the last word in mechanical
evolution. At present the dial system
merely flashes the number to a central
office girl, who in turn operates keys
similar to those of an adding machine
and the wires automatically pick up the
connection, except in the case of a
Pennsylvania district call. when the en-
tire operation Is mechanical.