THE MISSING LINK

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 155, 27 March 1926, Page 8

THE MISSING LINK

NEW CABLE LAID ISLANDS CONNECTED BY TELEPHONE BIG UNDERTAKING COMPLETED The final touches were put to the splicing of the new Cook Strait telephone cable at 9 a.m. yesterday, and at a point a little distance off Blind River, the last loop of the joined-up line dropped over the bows of the Tutanekai, the Government cable-laying steamer. As it disappeared in the sei cameras clicked, to record the completion ot a job—the biggest yet attempted by the New Zealand Telegraph Department—which had been carried through without a hitch.

A short length of cable had been laid from the South Island terminal on Monday, and buoyed off-shore. Then the Tutanekai returned to Lyall Bay, intending to make a start at daylight on Wednesday with the main portion of the work—the laying of the thirty miles of cable from the Wellington end. Heavy southerly weather, however, precluded any chance of proceeding satisfactorily with such a task, and the steamer waited for the sea to go down. Thursday morning found the gale gone and the sea wonderfully quietened, with a light northerly breeze blowing. The Work Resumed. At six o’clock the Tutanekai put the Lyall Bay end of the cable over, and tlie ship’s launch and a surf boat snaked it shoreward. As the cable paid out over the bow, sheave barrels were lashed to it to keep it from sinking to the bottom and so making the haul too heavv. When the surf was reached the launch cast off and left the work of getting the cable through the broken water 'to the boat. It was heavy puling, bit the boatmen are expert at this sort ot thing, and under Mr. Williams, one of the. ship’s officers, the cable was brought to shore, where a staff of telegraph men were waiting to tail on to the hauling line and drag the cable up the beach, where it was made fast. The end was then opened up for connection to instruments temporarily installed in a shed there for the purpose of noting conditions in the cable. Ihe ship’s partv then w.ent aboard the Tutanekai, having a- damp passage through the surf. Successful Tests. At 8.30 the ship heaved up her anchor and began the thirty-mile . journey to the other side of the Strait. Ihe cable passed from the hold, in which it had been carefully stowed, around die drum of a rotometer, which measured the length,' then through another instrument which recorded the tensile strain exerted by- the length depending from the ship, and finally over a large sheave at the forecastle head, whence it trailed away into the sea. Officers on the bridge took frequent observations of various landmarks, so that the ship’s course could be plotted exactly on the chart and the line followed'by the cable permanently recorded. The ship end of the calle was connected up with testing instruments, by means of which imperfections in the cable—if any developed—could be detected and measures taken to locate and temedy them. These tests were made every few minutes, and at intervals a telephone was substituted for the delicate testing apparatus, and speech could be held with Lyall Bay watchers. In both volume and clearness of sound—despite the necessarily imperfect make shift nature of the connections—the words came wonderfully well over the cable to those on the ship out in the Strait. A Delicate Task. About 5 o’clock, the ship having come almost exactly to the desired spot, the buoy marking the end of the southern shore cable was picked up and hauled aboard. Two experts were put ashore to co-operate with the ship’s staff in making final tests, and as the weather held fine it was decided to go straight ahead with the work of joining up. The main cable, of which a portion remained in the ship’s hold, was cut, and the armouring and protective coverings of the actual telephone conductors in the centre were laid back for some distance. Exhaustive tests of these conductors—(our small copper wires about No. 13 standard gauge in size—followed to see that everything was in thorough order, and the werk of splicing began. It was a delicate task, which continued throughout the night and early morning. The outer coverings were then replaced, and strongly reinforced by additional heavy iron wire armour. That done, the cable was dropped overboard, and the ship returned to Wellington, after making a call at Lyall Bay to pick up mark buoys which had been left there yesterday.

Continuous Telephonic Communication. That, in brief, is the story of the laying of the latest Cook Strait cable, which is intended primarily for telephone work onD, though at a pinch it could be used fcr erdinary telegraphic traffic. The shore connections are not yet complete, but it is expected that by next week two of the conductors will be in position to maintain tele- ’ phonic communication between Wei lington Blenheim, and Nelson, during the whole twentv-four hours of the day. Later on all the North and South Island telephone stations will enjoy this advantaCaptain J. Bollons, master of the Tutanekai, was in charge of the work of laving the cable, assisted by Captain W Whiteford, of the Marine Department, whose special task was to make constant observations fixing the ship’s course. Associated with them, in charge of the technical work, were Mr. A Gibbs (acting-chief telegraph engineer), Mr. I*. Miles (cable and equipment engineer), and Mr. A. Bollons (assistant electrician). Representing the contractors for the supply of the cable, Messrs. Siemens Brothers, Limited were Messrs. A. Hollowav (technical expert), and C. W. Salmon, of Corv, Wright, and Salmon, the firm’s New Zealand agents. The Telegraph Department's technical staff had an arduous time of it. and carried the. job through successfully, without anything in the nature of a troublesome hitch.