Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-08-03
PHONE COMPANY
IMPROVES SERVICE
Projects TotaIing s6so,ooo
Are Launched to Increase
Facilities.

Due to greatly increased demands,
the Chesapeake a. Potomac Telephone
Co. has under way projects involving
expenditure of $6So,000 to provide
further facilities for apartments, houses,
ONCE buildings and other places Of
business in washington.
Included among these projects, it
was said, are private branch exchange
systems in the huge new Department OF
Commerce Building and the United
States Government Interdepartmental
Bureau and i've business establish
mentS.
The major central Office equipment
installation is the placing OF 80 addi-
tional switchboard positions which are
necessary to handle increased out-of-
town calls. Telephone users here, ac-
cording to officials of the company, now
make about $4,000 out-of-town calls
daily, many of these being to distant
cities. The new switchboard will be
used In handling calls to long-distance
points. This extension of service will
be ready in about so days.
In the Cleveland central ONCE IL adj
ditional local switchboard positions for
$500 telephone lines also are being In
stalled. This Is needed to meet In
creased demands for service In this
area.
Cable Lines Are Extended.
Outside plant facilities being pro-
vided in every section of the District
include underground conduit and cable
extensions. The latter provide for
placing more than 10000 feet-22
miles-of cable, $1,000 feet of under
ground conduit and about so manholes.
In connection with the increase Of
calls to distant places. 1t has been nee
essary to install additional telephone
repeaters or booster equipment which
will improve transmission on calls to
such points. The present installation
consists of 240 repeaters, which will
bring the total installation to TAO.
Within the next year ESQ additional
telephone repeaters will be installed.
These repeaters, officials of the COM
pany say, in reality are vacuum tube
amplifiers similar In principle to the
ampIifiers used in radio receiving sets.
When words are spoken in.o the trans
mitter the voice energy Is converted
into electrical energy, which flows over
the wires. This energy gradually de-
creases in amount as 1t flows along the
wires In much the same way as the
sound of a persons voice in an open
space decreases as the distance from
another speaker increases.
Explain Work Of Repeater.
When the listener stands far enough
away from the speaker the sound Is so
weak that he cannot understand the
words. II, however, third person
stands at an intermediate point where
he can hear plainly and repeats the
x1n1S he
original speaker, the listener can then
hear the words distinctly
This repeating process, the engineers
say, Is the function Of the telephone re-
peater. Telephone repeaters placed al
intervals along the line enable speech
to be transmitted satisfactorily over q
much greater distance than would be
possible without the use Of this supple
mentary equipment. When the voice
energy Of the speaker has decreased to
very small amount the repeater In
jects new energy into the circuit and
the process continues perhaps through
number of telephone repeaters until
the voice energy reaches its destina-
ton In the receiver OF the distant sub
scriber.
Without telephone repeaters, it was
said, commercial conversations could
not be carried on successfully for more
than about so miles over modern cable
circuits which compose large part OF
the long distance lines serving Wash
ington. In the case Of open wire cir
cults, however, repeaters usually are
spaced at longer distances, depending
on the gauge of wires This Is due tC
the fact that the rate at which the
voice energy diminisheS as 1t travel;
over the closely spaced wires In the
cable is much greater than In the case
Of open-wire lines, where the wires are
| spaced ahoalt I foot anart