COOK STRAIT CABLE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 89, 13 March 1935, Page 2

COOK STRAIT CABLE

DIFFICULTIES OF REPAIR. A BIG TASK. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, March 12. The special telephone cable across Cook Strait has been severed deliberately because the Postal Department wish to make a permanent repair of a fault which had slowly developed and given it timely warning of its existence. The trouble exists about 1.3 ' miles from the Lyall Bay end of the cable, which runs thence across Cook Strait to Seddon, at the mouth of the Blind River, the submarine portion of the cable being 38 miles long. I It was laid down in 1926 and lias 1 given perfect service until the recent fault, and through its medium a verylarge telephone business had developed between the North and South Islands | because the cable and associated equipment was specially designed for clear and easy conversation. It contains ' four conductors, each of which is “loaded,” the .loading consisting of j a fine soft iron wire wrapped continuously round the central conductors, j The effect of this is to give a certain i amount of inductance, which offsets a ! handicap that would otherwise be preI sent owing to the great length and | weight of tV* main conductor. The j conductors are protected by heavy galvanised wires and at the shore end this armouring comprises twelve strands, each one-third of. an inch in diameter, lmt owing to the stormy conditions in the Straits and the rocky bottom off Lyall Bay some of these heavy wires must have been pierced and the trouble commenced to show itself in “cross-talk” between two of the channels in the cable. Realising that sooner or later this trouble would be accentuated, it was decided to completely replace the defective, section of the cable. With the ample warning given by the comparatively small fault, the engineering section of the Postal Department was able to make full preparations on shore and then it was only a matter of awaiting calm weather in order to lift the cable from a depth of about 60 feet and splice in about half a m.ile of new section. The work involved is.fairly difficult, because the four conductors will have to be joined up together with the surrounding protective medium, including the strands of protective w.ire, and under the best of conditions this is expected to take two days. Meanwhile, four telephone circuits have been temporarily lost, but the department, as part of its preliminary work, has arranged that the telegraph cables across Cook Strait, which are distributed over three routes, should he utilised for telephone conversation by means of the high-frequency carrier system operating over the core, carrying the direct current telegraph circuit, although the special telephone cable which has had to lie broken was also capable of being used for telegraphic purposes. The cross Strait cable resources of the department are fortunately more than equal to the emergency on the telegraphic side, therefore business men are advised that if they find that- there is some unavoidable delay and a little restriction in their telephone facilit es between the two Islands for a few days they should transfer some of their communications to the telegraph.