AUTOMATIC TELEPHONES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 569, 21 May 1913, Page 3

AUTOMATIC TELEPHONES.

The Wellington telephone exchange having reacjed its maximum proportions under the old manual switching system, the Postal Department is installing 500 automatic telephones, of the Strowger type, to meet the demand for new connection?. The working of this telephone ia described very simply in the current number of Progress, an admirable monthly publication issued in Wellington. Progress states briefly that the familiar battery box dissappears; the current is supplied from the box exchange. The automatic telephone supplied to the subscribers is a compact little instrument black in colour. Beneath the speaking funnel there is a dial, standing out from it about half an inch a perforated metal diss. To get a number, say, 59, the caller takes off the receiver, places a finger in the hole over No 5, and turns the disc from left to right as far as a protruding hook. Then he allows the disc to run back quickly before placing his finger over the No. 9 hole and giving the disc another turn, almost a complete revolution this time. As it runs back the disc has operated a simple mechanism which makes and breaks the circuit set up with the automatic switch at the exchange when the receiver was taken off the hook. First, five impulses flashed along, and then nine. This has caused two rapid adjustments of the switches at the exchange, placing the caller in touch with subscriber 59, who is notified by the intermittent ringing of his call bell. After the converqaton ends the placing of either receiver on the hook instantly breaks the connection. Perhaps a dilatory subscriber will l9ave his receiver off the hook. After that has been the position for a certain length of time a supervisor at the exchange sets to work with p "hov/ler." The suggests what sort ol a reminder ot his forgetfulness goes through to the subscriber. Replacing the receiver is less painful than puttinc up with he noise.