MODERN TELEGRAPHY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20441, 18 December 1929, Page 15

MODERN TELEGRAPHY.

INGENIOUS NEW MACHINE.

SPEEDING UP OF TRAFFIC.

NEW PLYMOUTH INSTALLATION

[BY TELEGRAPH. —OWX CORRESPONDENT.] NEW PLYMOUTH, Tuesday.

A Creed tele-printer machine, which embodies the most modern telegraph apparatus in New Zealand and Australia, is being installed in the New Plymouth telegraph office. The apparatus is of British manufacture and is capable of handling all classes of telegraphic traffic at more than twice the speed of Morse and much faster than the Murray multiples: machine, which hitherto has held pride of place. It can send and receive on one wire.

New Plymouth is being linked by the new system with Wellington and eventually the system will be used extensively in New Zealand. In conjunction with the Murray system it will make for an highly efficient and accurate service, equal to any rush or any manner of work. The sending channel comprises a keyboard similar to the ordinary typewriter. The depression of a key lever perforates a parchment with a combination of fine holes. It is possible to obtain 32 different combinations, which include the alphabet. The perforated tape is then automatically fed into the transmitter'. The transmitter is capable of sending 2220 signals a minute, which represents 66 words. The instrument is ingeniously designed so that "it will wait while the operator checks or times off his messages, or if he is delayed suddenly through any circumstance. As soon as the loop of tape is again'offered to the machine it will automatically take up its task.

When the machine stops at the transmitting end the receiving machine at the distant office also stops, and the two resume together when the operator restarts. The signals, after being received, are transformed into printed characters on a strip of paper or .tape with a gummed back. The receiving operator actually does no operating, as the whole thing is worked by the operator transmitting, whose task actually amounts to typing. At the receiving end the tape is cut and gummed on to the telegraph form. The average operating speed by key or hand-sending is 25 words a minute. 'The Murray machine can operate at 40 words a minute and the Creed' at 66. With the new machine's appearance the Morse operator in the telegraphic office will pass, but only gradually. _ The operator of the future will be in effect a touch typist. The instrument at New Plymouth will be in full working order by Thursday, and will be able to handle the extra Christmas traffic.