MODERN STREET LIGHTING

Shannon News, 22 February 1927, Page 3

MODERN STREET LIGHTING

NEW SYSTEM AT ST. LOUIS. INAUGURATION BY WIRELESS. A new system of electric street* lighting is being installed'in St. Louis United States. It comprises about 1000 miles of streets, requiring 10,000 lights, and will cost £1,600,000. The first section, involving about one-fourth of the total cost, has been completed and was recently brought into service. The official opening of this section was used to demonstrate the remarkable flexibility of radio waves carrying sound impulses. The voice of Mr. Victor J. Miller, the Mayor of St. Louis, was sent to station KDKA, of the Westinghouse Electric Company, in East Pittsburgh. At KDKA his voice released impulses from the station’s powerful short-wave transmitting equipment which being received in St. Louis, actuated extremely sensitive relays. These, in turn, , threw into operation the substation controlling the street-lighting system. , . . Many novel features are included in the equipment. The concrete posts were made by a centrifugal process, in which the concrete is poured into a mould and spun into shape, making the post hollow for taking the cable to the lamp. The substation controlling the lights is provided with an astronomical clock which will regulate the time of turning on the lights at dusk and turning them off at dawn, acording as the days lengthen and shorten, throughout the seasons. The substation is entirely automatic and is so designed that various sections of the lighting system will be turned on at five-n second intervals. This prevents thcr. full load from being thrown on th.O/ generating equipment at one time*;,' and is an added precaution agaimph power failure. In case of trouble on the power supply lines or di?r ; .; trlbuting circuits, protective.} relays ; r . re provided for every kind of ‘cAicrgSo long as a power' 0 sbtVfce'r is-available at the substa?f6ft 9 tlfe' -ro-‘ ln y S keen that souf&& !< fi’6hnfectdd'.vru on none of the incoriiing l likes'has.* power, the relays “klck’-’U put - the switches governing -tfto-i‘branch. w/Cft* emts. In case of trouble.von.fsOUp the branches, the relays;; *, lion, switching out th#i If the trouble is in tip); the station, an set r .carii bb cut over by hand to tiike, th’e of the disabled ’, 7