Evening star., 1935-05-26

can you be ashore?" Chances are
that in such case the admiral would
reply: I'm about IS minutes"
OF course, Mr.. Roosevelt wouldn't
have to keep his ear glued to the
receiver during the interim. The
phone folks would hold the line open
while he attended to his other OFF,
cial affairs. Then, when the admiral
reached shore, Miss Hachmeister
would ring the President and the
trans Pacific conversation would begin.
In case Mr.. Roosevelt were to call
Egypt, his voice would be carried first
of all from Washington to New York
and then over the telephone and
radio channels of the American Tele-
I.hone & Telegraph Co. and the Brit
ish Post Office to London and finally.
over a radio circuit between London
and Cairo. The circuit distance be-
tween New York and Cairo Is 5000
miles.
The calls to Europe, after passing
through the transatlantic terminal at
New York, travel over the long-wave
radio telephone circuit across the At
lantic in use when the service was in
augurated, and over three short-wave
channels that were put in operation
in 1928 and 1929. The terminals are
at New York and London, whence
connections are made respectively to
the Bell System network and to the
telephone systems of the various con-
tinental countries.
A presidential call to Paris, for ex-
ample, would go to London by radio
and thence by land wire and subma-
rine cable across the English Channel
to Paris. Other radio telephone cir
cults, terminating at London and
other European points. give service to
the Levant, Africa, India and the Far
East.
If Mr.. Roosevelt has an urgent mes
sage for friend or political adviser
on board ship at sea he would expe-
rience no difficulty in talking with
him. Today 20 ocean liners are equip
ped to handle telephone calls from
the mainland. New York Is the ter
minus for short-wave channels to
ships at sea and also to Buenos
Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Lima and Ber-
muda. Another short wave circuit
terminating at San Francisco provides
service with the Hawaiian Islands, the
Philippines, Japan and the Neither
land East Indies. From Miami, Fla,
calls are relayed to the Bananas,
Central America and the northern
part of South America.
GRANTED that the President makes
transoceanic call, you might
naturally suppose that his confidential
conversation could be taken out Of
the air by anybody owning a short
wave receiving set. This isn't the
case. To insure strictest privacy
across the ocean the operating COM
panies perform a peculiar operation
on the voice popularity known as
"scrambling." This Is q good word
for 1t, for the system involves a de-
liberate mangling of words in such a
fashion that intelligible speech &C.
tually is converted into gibberish. The
high pitched sounds in the speakers
voice emerge across the ocean as gut
teral grunts, while the deep chest
tones are transformed into suueaks.
Having travelled across the ocean in
this distorted form. the voice Is put
through an ''unscrambling" process
and Is delivered to the listener in
whatever form it was originally
spoken.
Our Chief Executive is the first in
history able to talk with Japan. The
new Japan-America service, inaugu-
rated last December 7, offers direct
voice-to-voice communication between
all Bell System telephones and those
in Toxic, Kyoto, Yokohama, Kobe and
other cities on the Island Of Hondo.
Japan. with 65, 900 900 people, served
by 100000 telephones, is the sixtieth
foreign country to be brought within
voice range Of the United States.
There are now only three countries
with more than 10000 telephones
New Zealond, China and Russia-
which do not have such communica-
ton. The distance between San