MESSAGES OVER BARE WIRES

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 234, 28 June 1920, Page 4

MESSAGES OVER BARE WIRES

ELIMINATION OF INSULATION POSSIBLE. According to a message from Washington, telephone and cable communication methods may be revolutionised as a rosui'.t of experiments conducted bv the Army Signal Corps and described before the National Academy of Scientists by Major-General Squier, chief of the crrps.

Explaining how the nnny had obtained well nigh perfect resullts both in telegraphing and telephoning over bare wires laid in the water and on and ander the ground, General •Squier predicted that the expensive heavy-insulated land and submarine cables now in use would be replaced by mngle bare wires over which a number of telephone and telegraph messages would be sent at -lie vamc.time. General Squier told lihe scientists that both telegraph and telephone communication was established recently between Fort Washington, Maryland, and Fort Hunt, Virginia, distant three-quarters of a mile, on opposite sides of the Potomac Itiver, by tho use of a. bare phosphorbronze wire Inid in tho river to connect the two stations. Similar communication was established between two stations at the Signal Corps laboratory at Camp Alfred Vail, New Jersey, by vsing bare copper wire buried about eight inches in tho earth and connecting the two stations, about three-quarters of a mile apart. As ocean telegraphy in its present form has reached a limit and submarine telephony is practically impossible, General Squier said, the hope for improvement lies in the adoption of bare wires laid in the water, using high frequency currents, and in tho study of the necessary changes. ' While the germ of the present idea was noted by General Squier in 1910, it vas not until the United States entered the war that the necessity for rapid development came. He told the scientists that the need of eliminating insulation arose when the United States was called en to supply the Allies as well as i'solf. Machinery for insulating wire- in use in the United States haxl a. capacity of only 8000 miles a month, whereas 40,000 wiles of wire monthly was required by the American Army alone.