INTERISLAND TELEPHONES

Evening Star, Issue 22442, 12 September 1936, Page 12

INTERISLAND TELEPHONES

REMARKABLE GROWTH OF BUSINESS NEW GABLE ORDERED [Special to the ‘ Star.’] WELLINGTON, September 12. The Postmaster-General (the Hon. F. Jones) announces that the Post and Telegraph Department has accepted the tender of Submarine Cables Ltd., of London, for the manufacture of a new cable about 38 miles long, specially designed for telephone communication across Cook Strait. • “ Telephone business between the two islands,” stated the Postmaster-Gene-ral, “ has grown at a remarkable rate, until it has practically reached the full capacity of the existing channels, although modern development in connection with high-frequency carrier currents has enabled a great deal more work to bo carried by some of the older cables than was actually practicable when they were originally designed and laid. The present cross-Strait communications are provided by one fourcore ‘ loaded ’ telephone cable (enabling four conversations to be conducted simultaneously) and six single-core telegraph cables. These seven cables yield a total of six telephone channels, plus four single-wire machine-printing telegraph circuits. “It is necessary to provide for rapid advances in business and a good margin for contingencies, and this will be amply covered by the capacity of the new cable, which is of the single core co-axial type, similar in general characteristic 'to that recently laid by the Commonwealth Government across Bass Strait between the mainland and Tasmania. It represented so important an advance in the communication across Bass Strait that _ the Commonwealth Government signalised it with the issue of a commemorative stamp. The cable has been very successful in its operation, giving five telephone channels and 18 telegraph circuits simultaneously, a notable advance in the technique of submarine cable construction. “ The new Cook Strait cable will have a central core of copper, surrounded by an insulating medium recently developed, known as paragutta. Spirally wound over this will be several copper tapes; then a layer of jute, over which is placed the outsido_ protective covering of heavy iron wires. This type of cable is specially adapted for the use of high-frequency current, and it will be practicable to operate simultaneously 25 carrier current telephone channels (enabling 25 conversations to take place), and in addition it can be used at the same time for 18 two-way teleprinter telegraphic channels. “ The contract date for completing the manufacture of the new cable is March next, when it will be shipped to the department’s cable stores in Wellington and laid by the cable ship Recorder on a route from Lyall Bay to Blind River, near Seddon.”