Telegraph station

“ Again, even without occupying a station, it is possible to read the messages which are passing along a telegraph-line, and thus perhaps discover important secrets. All that is required for this purpose is a small portable receiving instrument, and a few yards of copper wire to connect it with the line. A single individual, thus equipped, can "tap" a telegraph-line, in the daytime, by receiving the message in the ordinary way ”

“ Early in 1919 the Post-office Department used the wireless telegraph in connection with air mail service. A central station is located in the Post-office Department Building at Washington, and other stations are located in cities near the transcontinental air mail route from New York City to San Francisco. Experiments are being made with the wireless as a means of directing airplanes in flight, especially during foggy and stormy weather, and it is expected planes will ultimately be equipped with either wireless telegraph or telephone outfits. ”

“ The two essential portions of the field telegraph are the station and the line. In order that there may always be a sheltered place for erecting the instruments and transmitting messages, each detachment of the telegraph corps carries with it one or more wagons fitted up as stations; but, wherever a halt of more than a few minutes is made, and there is a suitable building available for that purpose, a telegraph-station is established in it by removing the batteries and instruments from the wagon. Fig. 1 is an outline sketch of a Prussian station-wagon, Fig. ”

“ Wireless telegraphy is part of the established order of things. The wireless telephone is practical for limited distance, but is not a commercial rival of the telegraph. Great distances are claimed, but they are matters for proof and speculation.
There is no immediate possibility that wireless telephony will take the place of local exchanges. If the time ever does come that it in any way tends to supplant the line telephone for some uses, it is more than probable that each subscriber must have his own generating station and call up direct. ”

“ Above is a diagram which will make a good station for a scout. This station, if the aero is of the proper height, is capable of sending messages from 8 to 10 miles.
The Receiving Set
Perhaps the most fundamentally important part of a wireless telegraph station is the aerial. Its construction varies with each station, but a few general suggestions may be of use. ”

“ As the waves shoot out and reach the distant station, the filings in the tube cohere and the current passing through them draws up the armature of the relay magnet. This closes the circuit of the recording instrument. It is broken constantly [156] by the tapper and instantly re-established by receiving waves.
The towers employed in 1920 for the transmission of wireless messages were very high. The manifest advantages of the system were apparent and long before 1930 wireless telegraphy came into general use. The new system proved the death-knell of telegraph poles, as well as ocean cables. ”

“ Any telegraph company organized under the laws of any state shall have the right to take and use from the public land through which its lines of telegraph may pass, the necessary stone, timber, and other materials for its posts, piers, stations, and other needful uses in the construction, maintenance, and operation of its lines of telegraph, and may pre-empt and use such portion of the unoccupied public lands subject to pre-emption through which their lines of telegraph may be located as may be necessary for their stations, not exceeding forty acres for each station ”

“ See under Acoustic. — Dial telegraph, a telegraph in which letters of the alphabet and numbers or other symbols are placed upon the border of a circular dial plate at each station, the apparatus being so arranged that the needle or index of the dial at the receiving station accurately copies the movements of that at the sending station. — Electric telegraph, or Electro- magnetic telegraph, a telegraph in which an operator at one station causes words or signs to be made at another by means of a current of electricity, generated by a battery and transmitted over an intervening wire. ”

“ Before going to work on his records, he dropped the station signal board to "Stop for orders," and adjusted the spring of the telegraph relay so that he would be sure to hear anything that might go through over the wires. ”

“ All messages of the officers and agents of the railway company pertaining to its railroad business may be transmitted free of charge between all telegraph stations on the lines of its various railroads over wires set apart for railroad business. ”

“ Wireless stations belonging to the United States navy and located on land are usually housed in a small building in the immediate neighborhood of the tall wooden mast which supports the aerial. Commercial stations are usually situated on the top floor of a high office building, or a hotel, and the aerials supported by a steel lattice-work tower. Amateurs place a small pole on the roof of the house, or in a tree, and locate their station in any convenient room near the top of the house. ”

“ One such wire will care for all the business of many long-distance trunks. The public also absorbs the telegraph product of telephone lines. Such telegraph service is leased to brokers, manufacturers, merchants, and newspapers. Railway companies use portable telephone adjuncts to telegraph circuits on trains for service from stations not able to support telegraph attendants, and in a limited degree for the dispatching of trains. Telephone train dispatching, however, merits better equipment than a railway composite system affords. ”

“ Each of the High Contracting Parties undertakes to connect the coastal stations to the telegraph system by special wires, or, at least, to take other measures which will insure a rapid exchange between the coastal stations and the telegraph system. ”

“ Since that time great improvements have been made until now it is difficult to recognize in the delicate mechanisms of the relay, key, sounder, duplex, quad, and multiplex, the principle first promulgated in the old Morse register. Its influence was at once felt in all walks of life; it was an art to be an expert telegrapher. Keeping pace with the strides of advancing civilization, the telegraph has spread its slender wires, until now almost the entire world is connected by its magnetism. ”

“ The Marconi station at Glacé Bay, Cape Breton, is now receiving messages for cableless transmission to England at the rate of ten cents a word—newspaper matter at five cents a word. Transatlantic wireless telegraphy is an everyday occurrence, and the common practical uses are almost beyond mention. ”

“ Already the cable companies have been affected considerably, and there is little doubt that they will feel the competition much more seriously before long. The general public, always conservative in such matters, have not yet grasped the fact that telegrams can be handed in at any telegraph office in the British Isles, and at most telegraph offices in the United States and Canada, for wireless transmission across the Atlantic, via the Marconi stations at Clifden and Glace Bay. ”

“ The agency of the electric telegraph was first employed in a regular and systematic manner by the newspaper press on the other side of the Atlantic. Ever on the look out for means of saving time or labour, the astute Americans saw when the first line of telegraph was erected between Washington and Baltimore, what facilities the new system would afford for the collection and transmission of news, and they at once set to work to discover some mode by which they might obtain the maximum amount of information for a minimum charge. ”

“ Already, by cable, telegraph, and telephone, no two towns in the civilized world are more than one hour apart. We have even girdled the earth with a cablegram in twelve minutes. We have made it possible for any man in New York City to enter into conversation with any other New Yorker in twenty-one seconds. We have not been satisfied with establishing such a system of transportation that we can start any day for anywhere from anywhere else; neither have we been satisfied with establishing such a system of communication that news and gossip are the common property of all nations. ”

“ The telegraph company was organized in 1851, and immediately thereafter began the work of constructing and operating telegraph lines. Its system extended throughout the United States and Canada, and connected with lines in Mexico and Central and South America by means of submarine cables, and with telegraph systems of foreign countries. ”

“ In making this radical change, railroad officials were most cautious, and yet we know of no case where the introduction of the telephone has been followed by its abandonment, the tendency having been in all cases toward further installations and more equipment of the modern type. The reasons for this are clear, for where the telephone is used it does not require a highly specialized man as station operator and consequently a much broader field is open to the railroads from which to draw operators. ”

“ Wireless telephony, like wireless telegraphy, but to an even greater extent, is peculiarly suited for the conveyance of marine intelligence. Wireless telephony occupies a unique position in this regard-no operator is required. The additional expense of an operator is an objection to the wireless telegraph in many cases, and forbids its installation. Anybody can operate the wireless telephone. It is also much quicker-words can be spoken more rapidly than they can be put into Morse signals and translated. ”

“ In the sphere of telegraphy the progress has not been less marked. Unlike Canada and the United States, but as in the mother country and most other countries, the telegraphs are under the control of the government, and administered by the postmaster general. Until 1901, this was not the case. By a concession granted by the legislature in 1854, the Anglo-American Telegraph Company obtained the exclusive privilege of communicating abroad by telegraphy, and of erecting and operating lines within the colony. ”

“ What has thus been achieved in developing the technical side of telegraph operation must be attributed in part to that impulse toward improvement which is constantly at work everywhere and is the most potent factor in the progress of all industries, but in large measure it is the reflex of the growing—and recently very rapidly growing—demands which are made upon the telegraph service. ”

“ Bell himself was perhaps the first to see the future of the telephone exchange. In a letter written to some English capitalists in 1878, he said: "It is possible to connect every man's house, office or factory with a central station, so as to give him direct communication with his neighbors.... It is conceivable that cables of telephone wires could be laid underground, or suspended overhead, connecting by branch wires with private dwellings, shops, etc., and uniting them through the main cable with a central office." ”

“ All the power that creates this artificial daylight is generated at a single station, and let flow to twenty-five storage centres. Minute by minute, its flow is guided by an expert, who sits at a telephone exchange as though he were a pilot at the wheel of an ocean liner. ”

“ The telegraph and telephone afford business facilities, which are thought indispensable, but they are only the inevitable followers of the railroad, and even depend on its lines for the stretching of their wires. ”

“ No such trouble can occur with wireless telegraphy, and if it becomes necessary to move a wireless station with great rapidity, as for instance on an unexpected advance of the enemy, it is an advantage to have no wire to bother about. ”

“ On an ordinary cable of about a thousand miles long, the working speed is about twenty words per minute. On the French Atlantic it is usually about thirteen, although as many as seventeen have sometimes been sent.
The 'duplex' system, or method of telegraphing in opposite directions at once through the same wire, has of late years been applied, in connection with the recorder, to all the long cables of that most enterprising of telegraph companies—the Eastern—so that both stations may 'speak' to each other simultaneously. ”

“ Hence if oceanic telegraphy is ever to be conducted in a manner in which the communication will be inviolable or, at any rate, not be capable of interruption by acts of war, the careful selection of the sites for stations is a matter of importance. A small station consisting of a single 150-foot mast and a wooden hut can easily be removed or replaced, but an expensive power station, the mere aerial of which may cost several thousand pounds, is not to be put up in a short time. ”

“ Indeed, it may be truly said that the harnessing of this force of nature (electricity) to the service of man for human intercourse has effected a change in political, commercial, and social relations, even more complete than that wrought by steam locomotion. Like its fellow emblems, the telegraph was the outcome of many years of persevering effort on the part of numerous scientific investigators and inventors; like them also, it was perfected for practical use on both sides of the Atlantic by men of our own race{14} and speech, such as Cooke, Wheatstone, and Morse. ”

“ To-day there is little temptation to the telegrapher to go to distant parts of the country on the chance that he may secure a livelihood at the key. The ranks are well filled everywhere, and of late years the telegraph as an art or industry has shown relatively slight expansion, owing chiefly to the development of telephony. ”