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Show and underground lines and radio telea device for very long distance circuits. phone distance, 5,500 miles. Twelve repeaters, spaced at interEach step in advance in this notevals of about 250 miles, are used in worthy development of the transmisa New York-Sa- n Francisco telephone sion of speech was marked by important discoveries and inventions connection. All told, there are now which tended to perfect the quality over 4,000 repeaters in the country. The new art which has made long of the transmission and the distance distance conversation sound as if the over which the telephone currents other party were talking from a telecould be carried. Among these dephone just across the street, has velopments have been many improvements in the telephone instruments, been built up with the vacuum tube in the switchboards and other central as one of its fundamentally importoffice equipment, in cables and line ant parts. apparatus such as loading coils, the carrier multiplex telephone and teleBECKER DECLINES OFFER TO ENTER OLYMPIC GAMES graph system and phantom circuits, addiso that long distance lines, in tion to extending much greater disGus L. Becker, prominent businesstances, may now carry several messman and sportsman, will not compete once. at ages in the trap shooting events at the One of the latest and most fundaOlympic games in Paris. Mr. Becker mental inventions, however, in exwas substituted for Frank Troeh, tending the range of transmission who has won the worlds shooting and in improving its quality, is the championship several times. Troehs vacuum tube repeater which is one eligibility has been questioned, but of the great marvels of science. This he is making a fight now to overcome is a device which receives weak telethe present bar placed against him enand and under such circumstances Mr. phone currents, amplifies and sends them on with Becker refuses to be a party to the larges them, renewed strength to the end of the deal. As much as Mr. Becker would line. In adapting the vacuum tube like to go, he is too much of a sportsfor use on telephone wire circuits and man to stand in Troehs way and in radio telephone, some remarkable hopes that the latter will be able to developments have been achieved in clear his record and be one of the the laboratories of the Bell system. American team. The vacuum tube repeaters were Mr. Becker is one of the very best Jackson Hole region, famous for its game first used in the transcontinental line trap shots of the United States. Two hunting. running between New York and San years ago he tied the worlds record immefor doubles, and the Utah boys are tion. At last it was realized that the Francisco. Their success was THROUGH PHONE SERVICE diate so so much in fact, that their sorry to hear that Mr. Becker will not RECENT ACCOMPLISHMENT telephone had become more than a use has gradually been extended and be one of the contestants in the neighborhood affair. It was an epoch-makievent in the history of long they are no longer considered simply worlds amateur championships. By John OBrien distance lines. toTwo miles in 1876, 5,500 miles From that time on the development day all the way, in fact, from Havwas steady and certain. The 900 mile ana, Cuba, to Catalina Island off the goal was reached on October 18, 1892, coast of southern California is the when the New line record in the remarkable development was opened. By the early years in of toll telephone service in this counthe present century the line had been has try. The range in conversation extended to Omaha, and on May 8, gradually extended until now it is pos1911, New York and Denver were sible to telephone between any two connected by telephone. The range states in the Union. of conversation was then 2,100 miles, The first conversation by overhead but the telephone engineers were not lines occurred on October 9, 1876. It satisfied. For years they had been was between Boston and Cambridge, looking forward to the time when a a distance of two miles. The experitranscontinental line could be estabment was a complete success and was lished and, within four years of the followed on October 26, 1876, by what opening of the line to Denver, their may be termed the first long distance dreams came true. conversation in the world. Alexander In 1913 the overhead line between Graham Bell, the inventor of the teleNew York and Salt Lake City, 2,600 phone, talked from Salem, Mass., over miles, was opened, and on January a wire with his assistant, Thomas A. 25, 1915, the Atlantic Coast talked to Watson, in Boston, 18 miles away. the Pacific when Boston and , San This was the first public demonstratFrancisco were connected by wire. ion of the telephone and it served to It had taken 40 years of pioneering bring home to the people of the naeffort to make it possible to talk betion that there was now a new word tween these points, 3,650 miles away, m : he language, a new idea in the but it was an. event that served to scientific world. justify the most sanguine hopes of A fter this, developments were rapid. Alexander Graham Bell and the 1880 a line had been constructed friends who never lost confidence in between Boston and Providence, a dis: him when the telephone was but a tame of 45 miles, and this was follow-e- d feeble, little toy, able to articulate by the opening, on March 27, 1884, only a few, unintelligible sounds. f he overhead line from Boston to Next came the extension of the line Nev York, 235 miles. to Los Angeles, followed on April 11, With the opening of the New n 1921, by the first conversation beline, long distance telephony tween Havana, Cuba, and Catalina Fishing resorts on the Union Pacific near beg m to be a real factor in the na Island, via submarine cable, overhead Yellowstone Park. ' . ng . 1 York-to-Chica- go i i i York-Bosio- t i l i l i i f i i J |