[...]
[...] to be a glass of [...]
[...]
What I want to say. Oh, say hello when the chief clerk answers and then say we'll
say whatever you please. Hello.
Hello. Hello.
Hello is this the office. I can't hear much of anything.
Sounds like someone crying. Oh, but my dear, you mustn't be so critical.
Of course it sounds strange at first. The advertisement says it will.
Well, I don't think much of it. No one will ever use it.
You mark my words, dear. The time will come when we will all use it.
Well, we may even talk with distance cities. With distance cities.
Oh, John, you're such a dreamer.
Oh, far speaking is not simply a matter of stringing wires on poles.
It is primarily a problem of transmission.
The electric waves which carry the voice along the wires are like other waves.
The farther they go, the weaker they become.
The loading coil introduced in 1901 helps their energy to be better maintained
and so improve the efficiency of the telephone circuit.
To understand the term loading as used in telephony, let us consider a string
along which waves are traveling.
If the free end of the string is snapped up and down rhythmically, the waves
along the string become weaker as they travel toward the fixed end.
If however, small weights or loads are placed along the string at regular
distances, those cells better. In a somewhat analogous manner, loaded telephone
circuits are more efficient than unloaded circuits.
Consequently, the electric waves carrying the voice can travel farther.
But in 1912, a new instrumentality came to telephone engineers for development
that was to revolutionize the art of telephony, the vacuum tube, to make possible
calls across the country, calls to distant countries, radio
programs from a hundred stations.
By 1914, it was in commercial service.
Ten years later, more than 10,000 were installed on telephone lines.
In another decade, there were 350,000.
On a conversation between New York and Los Angeles, for example, some
200 vacuum tubes are involved.
The majority of the tubes are used as amplifiers or repeaters.
They are installed in repeater stations, of which there are some 475 in the
United States today to amplify the voice currents.
So expertly are the repeaters made and installed that a whisper at one end of the
circuit can be heard at the other end.
There are other functions too.
Some of the tubes are used in carrier systems, where they step up the pitch or
frequency of the voice currents, so that a circuit may carry several
conversations, each at a separate control pitch or frequency,
and hence without interference.
Other tubes at the end of the line, of course, must step down these
pitches to the original frequencies.
The loading coil, as we have seen, reduces the loss of electrical energy in the
wires, but some loss still remains.
It is the vacuum tube repeater, which compensates for the remaining loss, and at
the same time, permits the delicate inflections of the human voice, or the wide
range of orchestral tone, to be carried by wires thousands of miles without
loss of character or volume.
The modern engineer needs many types of vacuum tubes for many purposes, some no
bigger than your finger, some of enormous power for talking across oceans.
The vacuum tube is the magic bottle of telephony.
It is the Aladdin's lamp that brought into being far speaking.
[...]
[...] Now who could be calling us at this time of night I don't know I'm not
expecting any calls. This is Mr Reynolds resident. Yes yes he's here. Japan. Just
a minute [...] My journey. Come on mother.
Hello yes this is Mr Reynolds.
[...] but the mom I wish they'd hurry. Hello yes.
[...] hello Marjorie how are you honey. It's marvelous to hear your voice
your voice sounds just the same as ever grandpa. Oh it was lovely of you and
grandmama to give us this trip we were only too glad we could do it there.
Oh she splendid way here she
is. Hello dear.
Bless your heart for calling us. Yes yes
we both feel fine.
Are you having a good trip. We certainly miss you. All
right. You do that.
Goodbye dear. Just imagine hearing her
voice so clearly and she's halfway around the world.
It's it's well it's impossible. Yet you've talked with her and she with you
I know but Japan it's uncanny but it's true.
Mother do you remember what you said about first telephone in the old
house. You remember.
What did I say you said no one will ever use it you mark my words
dear the time of government we will all use it but we may have been talked with
this and said he's with this and said oh John you're such a dreamer why.
I couldn't have said that I thought it had a wonderful future you were the one
that didn't believe in it and said that it would never be you. Well all right
mother let's play another game. Who's the leader. Thought it had a wonderful.