MACHINE TELEGRAPHY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 300, 13 September 1921, Page 5

MACHINE TELEGRAPHY

SOME REMARKABLE INVENTIONS 1 ' EQUIPMENT SECURED FOR NEW i ZEALAND / CHIEF ENGINEER’S REPORT I, Tho passing of'the manual telegraph operator and tho coming of tho telegraph machine are fore-* shadowed by tho Chief Telegraph ' Engineer (Mr. E. A. Shrimpton) In his report to the PostmasterGoneral concerning his recent visit to Europa and America. The machines, as described iq, Tin: 1 Dominion recently, produce the message in printed form at the receiving end, end give greatly increased speed and efficiency. "In all European countries machineprinting telegraphy is gradually replac- / ing manually and automatically operated Morse apparatus," says Mr. Shrimpton. "London has direct circuits to practically every important every capital city—on the Continent, and all of these circuits are worked by ma-chine-printing apparatus. Tho 'foreign gallery’ in the Central London Telegraph Office greatly interested me, especially having in mind the war. There were direct circuits to Berlin! Vienna, Petrograd, and other places. The circuit to Petrograd was carrying a very small volume of traffic—in fact,, it was quite idle, tor long periods during the day. All the important circuits within Great Britain also work machine printing, with the result that wire capacity for traffic carrying has been largely increased, and the output per operator compared with Morse working has also been increased, with less physical and less mental strain on .the operators. Machine printing also reduces tho office delay to telegrams; for instance, formerly Wheatstone (automatic Morse) worked tho London-Dublin /' traffic with an average office delay of half an hour; since the adoption of machineprinting multiplex the office delay has been reduced to under ten minutes. t "Shortly after the declaration of war between Great Britain and Germany a complete 'all-red' route from London to Australasia was inaugurated. Germany owned a cable which was laid from Emden to the Azores and from the Azores to New York. With creditable dispatch after tho declaration this cable was cut on the English side of the Atlantic and brought into- Penzance, and on the other side of th© ocean New York was severed and the cablo diverted to Halifax. This ‘all-red’ cable is worked automatically throughout. Qable code from Halifax is received in London through repeaters at Penzance; this code’ is /automatically translated into Wheatstone "'perforated forwarded tape, whidh in turn passes through what is known as 'Creed apparatus,’ and issues a cablegram printed in Roman characters ready for delivery to tho addressee. "Whilst on this subject I should like' to mention the wonderful work don© by British telegraph engineers and navigating officers on cable ships, when one coneiders what an easy prey a cablo ship fast to cables is for submarines and drifting mines. On one occasion a ship hoxp bp a mine with tho cable. < Despite all this, Franco, Belgium, Holland, and Norway wore all kept in communication; and the cables to Ireland an dtho outlying islands all round tho United Kingdom, were regularly repaired throughout the war. In addition to the British Post Office engineers’ cable ships Alert and Monarch, tho Department at one time or other chartered every available cabte ehip, including the largest in the world; also one was brought from Canada. Dur-

ing th© war three cable ships were lost, \ including tho British Post Office Monaroh, which was mined in tho English Channel, and. sunk, entombing three of her crew. "Th© modern machine-printing telegraph apparatus, which 'telegraph engineers to-day aro convinced, is rapidly ending the reign of Mora? working/ is a

development of principles discovered by Monsieur Baudot, ia French telegraph engineer, over forty, years ago. The signal for each letter, figure, or symbol is made up of five units, which are trans-

mitted. to a telegraph-line. A five-laver key is used. These electrical impulses on being received at thA. distant end'are mechanically translated into letters, ■ which aro printed on paper tapo or/slip, which in turn is gummed to a telegraph

form and delivered to the atldresscft. Suph a system has b.een very largely used in Franco for forty years, and to a lesser degree and for a lesser period in Eng-

land. ~ “To operate the five-lever key an opeitor had to leafn what is known-as the 'Baudot code.’ A few years before the war Donald Murray brought out a 'keyboard perforator,’ which punched holes in a paper tape. 1 This tape, on being passed through a 'transmitter,' sent signals to the' line in the same manner as an operator doos witli the five-lever

key. Murray also brought out a 'pagcprintor’ to replace the 'tape-printer' Tho key-board perforator has keys, etc., exactly lifter the stylo Of-a typewriter, and the 1 page-printer is really a typewriter minus the keys. By using a key-

board perforator tho capacity of an operator sending telegrams is increased ICO per cout. . “In April, 1914, tho Department ordered from Donald Murray tho apparatus referred, to above, which, owing to

th© war bringing about difficulties in manufacture, has not yet been delivered. On reaching Ix>ndon I found that Mr. Murray had all ths instruments—minus the printers—ready for shipment, and that there was no chanc© of his being able to supply printers within nino months,or more. As all the Department's' maih telegraph circuits were becoming *boBly congested, it was faced with th© problem either to erect additional wires and lay more cables across Cook Strait, or to increase tho carrying capacity of Its ©xisting wires. ’ ' “The main telegraph circuits in Now Zealand aro worked on th© manual Morse quadruples systeta:. thia io four telegrams passing .over a wire simultaneously, two being received at tho same time, as two are being emit. Machine printing will enable eight telegrp.ms to pass over a single wire—i.e., four going and four coming at the same time, and each telegram being dispatched nt double tho speed possible with manual Morse signalling. In other words, th© .dnrrying-' capacity of tho linos will, with machineprinting appi'atus, bo increased by 300 per cent., and an operator’s capacity for getting off ,work will be increased 100 per cent., with.'aw;! have already mentioned, less mental and physical: strain. The _ Wnnganui-N?lson cable, of 107 nautical jliles,'which: has been out of action only about twice in forty years, is now worked

only duplex—i.e., one telegram sent and roccpyed simultaneously—end will with machine-printing apparatus be* ■ capable

of carrying eight times the traffic it io ’ - now doing. i / "With a view to quickly increasing the carrying capacity of some of our most congested routes I sought to obtain sufficient Baudot tape-printers to bring this about? '■With the assistance of the British Post Office Engineering Department I managed "to secure twenty tape-print-ers; which should arrive in New Zealand shortly. Somo time must elapse before this apparatus is brought info practical use.. Staff must be trained to work it. and different methods from those now id voguS for handling 'traffic must be organised. . . . There is a simpler type of machine telegraph apparatus used "in America, which is known aa ths "startstop” pr the "Teletype.” It will send signals for printing messages in both

directions over a wire. It usostthe. earns keyboard and signals as the Bolldot, and can be. used on a lot of our circuits with a considerable saving in man-power. I have secured a set for trial. "It should he noted that various instruments which go to make up; machine telegraphy are interchangeable. For instance, on a London-Manchester circuit I saw working on one of the multiplex channels a Murray keyboard, a Western electric transmitter, and a Baudot tape-printer. -At the corresponding end at Manchester they had a Baudot five-levor key worked manually, and a Western electrio pago-printer. Startstop or Teletype apparatus will work Into a multiplex set. Duplex quadruple could be used over a wire from Wellington io Christchurch, and by means of simple repeaters at Christchurch channels for Greymouth, Oama.ru, and Timaru provided, leaving the fourth channel for Christchurch-Wellington traffic, •flo Greymouth, Oamaru, Timaru, and Christchurch would be eimultnnoously sending and receiving a telegram to and from Wellington, so that in effect eight telegrams would be passing to and from over a single wire betweep Wellington and Christchurch. When such apparatus is installed throughout our country it does not require much imagination to see that working will be possible to all centres —i.e, all centres will be in intercommunication, thus saving greatly in transmitting or relaying staffs, with a corresponding reduction in number, of hands through which telegrams'will have to pass, and a corresponding reduction in the chances of error. The apparatus at Timaru, Oamaru, and Greymouth would have no machinery moving when there is no traffic to be dispatched, or received."