Cyclopedia of Telephony and Telegraphy Volume I Part 5

and

-------------------------- Z = / R^{2} + L^{2}[omega]^{2} /

the symbols meaning as before.

In words, these formulas mean that, knowing the frequency of the current and the capacity of a condenser, or the frequency of the current and the inductance of a circuit (a line or piece of apparatus), and in either case the resistance of the circuit, one may learn the impedance by calculation.

Insulation of Conductors. The fourth property of telephone lines, insulation of the conductors, usually is expressed in ohms as an insulation resistance. In practice, this property needs to be intrinsically high, and usually is measured by millions of ohms resistance from the wire of a line to its mate or to the earth. It is a convenience to employ a large unit. A million ohms, therefore, is called a _megohm_. In telephone cables, an insulation resistance of 500 megohms per mile at 60 Fahrenheit is the usual specification. So high an insulation resistance in a paper-insulated conductor is only attained by applying the lead sheath to the cable when its core is made practically anhydrous and kept so during the splicing and terminating of the cable.

Insulation resistance varies inversely as the length of the conductor.

If a piece of cable 528 feet long has an insulation resistance of 6,750 megohms, a mile (ten times as much) of such cable, will have an insulation resistance of 675 megohms, or one-tenth as great.

Inductance vs. Capacity. The mutual capacity of a telephone line is greater as its wires are closer together. The self-induction of a telephone line is smaller as its wires are closer together. The electromotive force induced by the capacity of a line leads the impressed electromotive force by 90 degrees. The inductive electromotive force lags 90 degrees behind the impressed electromotive force. And so, in general, the natures of these two properties are opposite. In a cable, the wires are so close together that their induction is negligible, while their capacity is so great as to limit commercial transmission through a cable having .06 microfarads per mile capacity and 94 ohms loop resistance per mile, to a distance of about 30 miles. In the case of open wires s.p.a.ced 12 inches apart, the limit of commercial transmission is greater, not only because the wires are larger, but because the capacity is lower and the inductance higher.

Table I shows-the practical limiting conversation distance over uniform lines with present standard telephone apparatus.

TABLE I

Limiting Transmission Distances

+-----------------------------+----------------------+ SIZE AND GAUGE OF WIRE LIMITING DISTANCE +-----------------------------+----------------------+ No. 8 B. W. G. copper 900 miles 10 B. W. G. copper 700 miles 10 B. & S. copper 400 miles 12 N. B. S. copper 400 miles 12 B. & S. copper 240 miles 14 N. B. S. copper 240 miles 8 B. W. G. iron 135 miles 10 B. W. G. iron 120 miles 12 B. W. G. iron 90 miles 16 B. & S. cable, copper 40 miles 19 B. & S. cable, copper 30 miles 22 B. & S. cable, copper 20 miles +-----------------------------+----------------------+

In 1893, Oliver Heaviside proposed that the inductance of telephone lines be increased above the amount natural for the inter-axial s.p.a.cing, with a view to counteracting the hurtful effects of the capacity. His meaning was that the increased inductance--a harmful quality in a circuit not having also a harmfully great capacity--would act oppositely to the capacity, and if properly chosen and applied, should decrease or eliminate distortion by making the line's effect on fundamentals and harmonics more nearly uniform, and as well should reduce the attenuation by neutralizing the action of the capacity in dissipating energy.

There are two ways in which inductance might be introduced into a telephone line. As the capacity whose effects are to be neutralized is distributed uniformly throughout the line, the counteracting inductance must also be distributed throughout the line. Mere increase of distance between two wires of the line very happily acts both to increase the inductance and to lower the capacity; unhappily for practical results, the increase of separation to bring the qualities into useful neutralizing relation is beyond practical limits. The wires would need to be so far above the earth and so far apart as to make the arrangement commercially impossible.

Practical results have been secured in increasing the distributed inductance by wrapping fine iron wire over each conductor of the line.

Such a treatment increases the inductance and improves transmission.

The most marked success has come as a result of the studies of Professor Michael Idvorsky Pupin. He inserts inductances in series with the wires of the line, so adapting them to the constants of the circuit that attenuation and distortion are diminished in a gratifying degree. This method of counteracting the effects of a distributed capacity by the insertion of localized inductance requires not only that the requisite total amount of inductance be known, but that the proper subdivision and s.p.a.cing of the local portions of that inductance be known. Professor Pupin's method is described in a paper ent.i.tled "Wave Transmission Over Non-uniform Cables and Long-Distance Air Lines," read by him at a meeting of the American Inst.i.tute of Electrical Engineers in Philadelphia, May 19, 1900.

NOTE. United States Letters Patent were issued to Professor Pupin on June 19, 1900, upon his practical method of reducing attenuation of electrical waves. A paper upon "Propagation of Long Electric Waves" was read by Professor Pupin before the American Inst.i.tute of Electrical Engineers on March 22, 1899, and appears in Vol. 15 of the Transactions of that society. The student will find these doc.u.ments useful in his studies on the subject. He is referred also to "Electrical Papers" and "Electromagnetic Theory" of Oliver Heaviside.

Professor Pupin likens the transmission of electric waves over long-distance circuits to the transmission of mechanical waves over a string. Conceive an ordinary light string to be fixed at one end and shaken by the hand at the other; waves will pa.s.s over the string from the shaken to the fixed end. Certain reflections will occur from the fixed end. The amount of energy which can be sent in this case from the shaken to the fixed point is small, but if the string be loaded by attaching bullets to it, uniformly throughout its length, it now may transmit much more energy to the fixed end.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAIN ENTRANCE AND PUBLIC OFFICE, SAN FRANCISCO HOME TELEPHONE COMPANY Contract Department on Left. Accounting Department on Right.]

The addition of inductance to a telephone line is a.n.a.logous to the addition of bullets to the string, so that a telephone line is said to be _loaded_ when inductances are inserted in it, and the inductances themselves are known as _loading coils_.

Fig. 35 shows the general relation of Pupin loading coils to the capacity of the line. The condensers of the figure are merely conventionals to represent the condenser which the line itself forms.

The inductances of the figure are the actual loading coils.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 35. Loaded Line]

The loading of open wires is not as successful in practice as is that of cables. The fundamental reason lies in the fact that two of the properties of open wires--insulation and capacity--vary with atmospheric change. The inserted inductance remaining constant, its benefits may become detriments when the other two "constants" change.

The loading of cable circuits is not subject to these defects. Such loading improves transmission; saves copper; permits the use of longer underground cables than are usable when not loaded; lowers maintenance costs by placing interurban cables underground; and permits submarine telephone cables to join places not otherwise able to speak with each other.

Underground long-distance lines now join or are joining Boston and New York, Philadelphia and New York, Milwaukee and Chicago. England and France are connected by a loaded submarine cable. There is no theoretical reason why Europe and America should not speak to each other.

The student wis.h.i.+ng to determine for himself what are the effects of the properties of lines upon open or cable circuits will find most of the subject in the following equation. It tells the value of _a_ in terms of the four properties, _a_ being the attenuation constant of the line.

That is, the larger _a_ is, the more the voice current is reduced in pa.s.sing over the line. The equation is

----------------------------------------------------------------------- / ----------------------------------------------- a= / /(R^{2}+L^{2}[omega]^{2})(S^{2}+C^{2}[omega]^{2} + (RS-LC[omega]^{2} / /

The quant.i.ties are

R = Resistance in ohms L = Inductance in henrys C = Mutual (shunt) capacity in farads [omega] = 2[pi]_n_ = 6.2832 times the frequency S = Shunt leakage in mhos

The quant.i.ty _S_ is a measure of the combined direct-current conductance (reciprocal of insulation resistance) and the apparent conductance due to dielectric hysteresis.

NOTE. An excellent paper, a.s.sisting such study, and of immediate practical value as helping the understanding of cables and their reasons, is that of Mr. Frank B. Jewett, presented at the Thousand Islands Convention of the American Inst.i.tute of Electrical Engineers, July 1, 1909.

Chapter 43 treats cables in further detail. They form a most important part of telephone wire-plant practice, and their uses are becoming wider and more valuable.

Possible Ways of Improving Transmission. Practical ways of improving telephone transmission are of two kinds: to improve the lines and to improve the apparatus. The foregoing shows what are the qualities of lines and the ways they require to be treated. Apparatus treatment, in the present state of the art, is addressed largely to the reduction of losses. Theoretical considerations seem to show, however, that great advance in apparatus effectiveness still is possible. More powerful transmitters--and more _faithful_ ones--more sensitive and accurate receivers, and more efficient translating devices surely are possible.

Discovery may need to intervene, to enable invention to restimulate.

In both telegraphy and telephony, the longer the line the weaker the current which is received at the distant end. In both telegraphy and telephony, there is a length of line with a given kind and size of wire and method of construction over which it is just possible to send intelligible speech or intelligible signals. A repeater, in telegraphy, is a device in the form of a relay which is adapted to receive these highly attenuated signal impulses and to re-transmit them with fresh power over a new length of line. An arrangement of two such relays makes it possible to telegraph both ways over a pair of lines united by such a repeater. It is practically possible to join up several such links of lines to repeating devices and, if need be, even submarine cables can be joined to land lines within practical limits.

If it were necessary, it probably would be possible to telegraph around the world in this way.

If it were possible to imitate the telegraph repeater in telephony, attenuated voice currents might be caused to actuate it so as to send on those voice currents with renewed power over a length of line, section by section. Such a device has been sought for many years, and it once was quoted in the public press that a reward of one million dollars had been offered by Charles J. Glidden for a successful device of that kind. The records of the patent offices of the world show what effort has been made in that direction and many more devices have been invented than have been patented in all the countries together.

Like some other problems in telephony, this one seems simpler at first sight than it proves to be after more exhaustive study. It is possible for any amateur to produce at once a repeating device which will relay telephone circuits in one direction. It is required, however, that in practice the voice currents be relayed in both directions, and further, that the relay actually augment the energy which pa.s.ses through it; that is, that it will send on a more powerful current than it receives. Most of the devices so far invented fail in one or the other of these particulars. Several ways have been shown of a.s.sembling repeating devices which will talk both ways, but not many a.s.sembling repeating devices have been shown that will talk both ways and augment in both directions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 36. Shreeve Repeater and Circuit]

Practical repeaters have been produced, however, and at least one type is in daily successful use. It is not conclusively shown even of it that it augments in the same degree all of the voice waves which reach it, or even that it augments some of them at all. Its action, however, is distinctly an improvement in commercial practice. It is the invention of Mr. Herbert E. Shreeve and is shown in Fig. 39.

Primarily it consists of a telephone receiver, of a particular type devised by Gundlach, a.s.sociated with a granular carbon transmitter b.u.t.ton. It is further a.s.sociated with an arrangement of induction coils or repeating coils, the object of these being to accomplish the two-way action, that is, of speaking in both directions and of preventing reactive interference between the receiving and transmitting elements. The battery _1_ energizes the field of the receiving element; the received line current varies that field; the resulting motion varies the resistance of the carbon b.u.t.ton and transforms current from battery _2_ into a new alternating line current.

By reactive interference is meant action whereby the transmitter element, in emitting a wave, affects its own controlling receiver element, thus setting up an action similar to that which occurs when the receiver of a telephone is held close to its transmitter and humming or singing ensues. No repeater is successful unless it is free from this reactive interference.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 37. Mercury-Arc Telephone Relay]

Enough has been accomplished by practical tests of the Shreeve device and others like it to show that the search for a method of relaying telephone voice currents is not looking for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The most remarkable truth established by the success of repeaters of the Shreeve type is that a device embodying so large inertia of moving parts can succeed at all. If this mean anything, it is that a device in which inertia is absolutely eliminated might do very much better. Many of the methods already proposed by inventors attack the problem in this way and one of the most recent and most promising ways is that of Mr. J.B. Taylor, the circuit of whose telephone-relay patent is shown in Fig. 37. In it, _1_ is an electromagnet energized by voice currents; its varying field varies an arc between the electrodes _2-2_ and _3_ in a vacuum tube. These fluctuations are transformed into line currents by the coil _4_.

CHAPTER V

TRANSMITTERS

Variable Resistance. As already pointed out in Chapter II, the variable-resistance method of producing current waves, corresponding to sound waves for telephonic transmission, is the one that lends itself most readily to practical purposes. Practically all telephone transmitters of today employ this variable-resistance principle. The reason for the adoption of this method instead of the other possible ones is that the devices acting on this principle are capable, with great simplicity of construction, of producing much more powerful results than the others. Their simplicity is such as to make them capable of being manufactured at low cost and of being used successfully by unskilled persons.