PARTY LINES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 17129, 3 September 1926, Page 6

PARTY LINES

PREVENTING INDUCTION

COST OF SAFEGUARDS

General interest has been aroused by the statement published in last evening’s Herald of a Wairoa farmer's experience in the use of a single line transformer, as a resistor of the induction rendered likely by tho proximity of a single-wire 'phone line to high tension power lines. Chvners of private lines were under tho impression that the only means of ensuring efficiency for their services Mas to convert the lines into metallic circuits, either at their own cost or by asking the Department to provide services for them. The Wairoa farmer has shown that the installation of a single-line transformer will have the same effect as the conversion to metallic circuit, and that the cost of the transformer is trifling compared with the extra cost of tho duplication of private lines, or the rentals on Government services.

The suggestion that the Department did not favor the use of the transformers, owing to their being liable to damage by lightning, was incorrect, insofar as it referred to the actual mechanism of the transformer. The box which contains the transformer and protects it against the weather has also a lightning guard, the fuse of which would bloM- out before the effect of lightning could reach the transformer. Thus repairs would bo a simple matter in the event oLlightning damage.