DOT AND DASH AROUND THE WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 209, 5 April 1913, Page 10

DOT AND DASH AROUND THE WORLD

INVENTION THAT WILL REVOLUTIONISE CABLING. NO REPETITIONS. An invention which will revolutionise submarine telegraphy has been perfected by Mr. John Gott, the chief engineer to the Commercial Cable Company. He has invented a device by which the Morse dot and dash signals can be used on long submarine cables, that is to say, messages can be sent by the ordinary land line Morse key and read on a Morse sounder. This invention surpasses in importance anything that has been added to the submarine cables since Sir W r illiam Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and Cromwell Varley first made the practical operation of long submarine cables possible fifty-five years ago. Its most important effect is that it is expected to make the cable service as flexible as the land service. Instead of it being necessary to re-transmit cables, as at present, from sea to land and from land to sea, by different methods, with the new system one signal will be sent through automatic repeaters completely round the world if necessary. The system links up cables or land lines, or both, or alternate cables and land lines. Thus, a cable sent from New York to the "Express" office is now received by the operator at the cable station at Waterville, on the Kerry coast, in the system invented by Lord Kelvin, and known as the syphon recorder, in which the message appears in a series of wavy lines. In order that it may be sent to London it is translated by the operator into the Morse code, or a series of dots and dashes, and retransmitted. Under the new system it would go straight i from New York to the "Express' office, i Or, supposing the "Express" is receiving a cable from Japan. At present this cable has to be re-transmitted ten times. L T nder the new system the Japanese operator would press a key, and the electric current would bring his signal direct into the "Express" office.

LONDON TO SYDNEY. Again, the "Express' has a message to send to Sydney in Australia. On its < way the message has to pass under the Atlantic, across the land lines of the United States, and then pass by submarine cable under the Pacific. There is no connection between the submarine lines and the land lines, and the message has to he re-transmitted. By the new system, however, the message would be received in Sydney direct from the "Express" office without any retransmission at all. Mr. Clott's invention is declared to be an achievement which inventors and the foremost scientists in the world in cable working have striven to attain ever since the first Atlantic cable was laid. The first trans-Atlantic cable was destroyed by forcing a powerful electric current through it in the attempt to employ the Morse Alphabet of dots and dashes. Ever since that time, continuous but always unsuccessful attempts have been made to discover some method of using the Morse system of dot and dash signals. The Commercial Cable Company has acquired the rights to this invention, and has taken out patents all over the world.

It should be mentioned that, of the very limited number of improvements in submarine cable working. Mr. Gott's invention is the third invention of prime importance produced by members of the Commercial Cable Company's staff, inventions which the rest of the cable world was quick to appreciate and adopt, namely, the vibrator by the late Charles Cutt'riss, for which he received first prize at the Paris Exposition of 1887; the automatic transmitters of T. J. Wilmot and Charles Cuttriss. and now the Morse Cable system by John Gott.

This invention of Mr. Gott's transforms into a reality the dream of cable engineers ever since the first Atlantic cable was laid in 1858.