Trans Atlantic Calls in 1947? Western Electric & Bell Telephone System History, Trans Oceanic calls
Vložit
- čas přidán 3. 02. 2023
- Western Electric / Bell Telephone. Today we look at a partially restored 1947 Western Electric / Bell Telephone news film to see how trans Atlantic telephone calls were made and what technology was used at that time. Overseas telecommunications circa 1946 - 1947 were in great demand. Discussion includes Trans Atlantic Messages, radio, wire, cable, telecommunications history.
Runs 3 mins. - Věda a technologie
About a decade after this film was made, the first trans-Atlantic telephone cables were laid.
You're right! That was a lot of water to cross and a major accomplishment...
had no idea they used shortwave to send calls across the pond "back in the day". Always had the impression it just wasn't possible to make calls before the cables were laid
Yep, radio was used, but I don't think it was shortwave. Lower frequencies are more stable over time, whereas shortwaves are affected by time of day, season, and the 11 year solar cycle.
@@James_Knott Sure it was shortwave! Different frequencies were available to the stations (different transmitters and antennas) and they selected the best one depending on those factors.
@James_Knott It was definitely shortwave as I used to receive these transmissions on my shortwave radio back in the day. In fact, shortwave was used for transoceanic telephone calls well into the 1970's. Of course, as more cables were laid and satellites were launched, the use of shortwave radio declined to almost zero use. BTW, most of the radiotelephone calls were encrypted by speech inversion technics, which rendered the reception impossible to understand by a third party listener such as radio hobbyists and the general public.
@@deanbianco4982James is partially correct, I've read that they did use medium wave as well as short wave.
The operators are gone but are replaced by calls you don't want. I've lost track of the calls I've gotten from foreign countries trying to scam me. The long distance call was an expensive novelty back then. Now it's a nuisance, where there's little, if any, incremental costs in making one. Times have changed.
The way things are going, they should have kept the old system in as a backup.
You're perfectly right. We should still maintain rtc and shortwaves because it's simple. I live near the sea in France and when we had flood sometimes, even when electricity went down, phones were always working. Now, no electricity : no phone, no TV, no internet... No news!
@@34.FB.34Good points.
The Great Bell System. RIP Jan 1st 1984..
I bet many of us remember after the break up of AT&T, the bizarre numbers necessary to dial in order to use a 3rd party long distance service such as MCI. Had the breakup never happened, one wonders where telephone technology would be today.
A beneficial Monopoly
@@charleshunziker7416 Perhaps, but I was thinking how fast communications technology would have evolved.
There was much grief and quite a few tears. It felt like we were trying to do the right thing for society and got slapped in the face. There was also a lot of bitterness. I wouldn't be surprised if Judge Greene received death threats. I saw the handwriting on the wall and left Bell Labs in 1987.
@@johnopalko5223 Rumor has it that Judge Greene is playing patty cake with the Devil.
I've read that they used huge rhombic antennas which have very very high gain to broadcast these phone calls. I wish I could have gone back in time to experience a phone call in this manner.
When AT&T had its High Seas sevice to ships that facility was located at Ocean Gate, New Jersey and it used rhombic atennas.
I'm sure an international telephone call via an HF circuit was nothing like a local call. Atmospheric noise, fading and manmade interference have always made high frequency unpredictable, one moment the audio is loud and clear, then the ionospheric refraction angle changes and the signal sinks into the noise. There were also seasonal variations, winter is generally better than summer owing to less lightning and the eleven-year sunspot cycle made a big difference, with more sunspots giving a higher minimum usable frequency (MUF) and typically less noise.
Hi kc4cvch, that's a very good point about the HF circuit quality. I can imagine the voice transmission fading in and out during a call, making the connection a bit frustrating. The ionospheric refraction too. Sound like you know your radio tech. Thanks very much for the informative feedback. "MUF" is a new one to me. Have to remember that. Thanks! ~ VK, CHAP
@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject Different frequencies were available to the stations (different transmitters and antennas) and they selected the best one depending on those factors.
And of course technicians were monitoring the situation all the time, so they would switch frequencies as required.
Still, it would not have been as clear as a fiber cable, of course!
Now we can see why engineers were so keen on finding alternatives to HF radio as a means of placing telephone calls overseas, for the reasons you stated.
@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject Frequency Diversity, it was called. Also Space Diversity (multiple receiving antennas on the same frequency but spaced apart) was a help
These companies could afford big plots of land to built monstrous rhombic antennas. The benefit of a rhombic antenna design is that it has very very good gain to ensure a strong radio signal focused in the direction of the receiving station. The drawback of a rhombic antenna in relation to most hams and hobbiests are their size. Especially at the low medium and short wave frequencies.
Two *different* paths?! I had no idea🤯
It's to prevent the two directions from interfering with each other.
@David Wanklyn No, it was a matter of a strong, nearby transmitter overloading a receiver. By having the separate sites, that issue is avoided, with what's called space diversity. You can get an example of this by listening to an AM station, while driving by another station on a nearby frequency. The station you drive by might completely clobber the one you're listening to.
Two main reasons. Using two frequencies makes full-duplex possible and physically separating the receivers and the transmitters prevents front-end overload.
I remember when I took my senior trip to Germany in 1980, it took a while to connect to my parents in Memphis. There was also a lag when talking. In 1999 I talked to my girlfriend in Singapore. I used 10-10-321. Remember those? It was .18 a minute and very poor quality. ATT was .32 a min with international calling. Now with What’s App it’s free. So I can literally call long distance for free. My family did a zoom call with Jakarta, LA and Memphis so communication has come a long way.
Hi Brent, the overseas calls were quite a challenge then, and 1980 wasn't even that long ago. The tech has come a long way. I still find local cell phone calls annoying when they are over a poor connection of cheap phone. I prefer a sharp clear voice call. Like Ma Bell in her prime. Thanks very much for sharing your experience with the LD calls! ~ VK, CHAP
@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject The eighties was the times when international calls were routed over satellite. That introduced a long delay, and to avoid "echo" the link was artifically made half-duplex ("echo cancelling") so you would have to be careful not to speak at the same time because the other party would not hear that.
Later with undersea fiber that became a lot better.
Awesome stuf! English was already getting big! Also, started in 1927? Wow. I remember in the musical Annie Gandhi was one Who had left a message for warbucks. I wondered if he had to be in America to do it. But that map shows there was a connection to Delhi before, though maybe not 1933. Still Warbucks was rich enough in that universe things could have advanced by a few years.
Cool.
Thanks for the video.
You are very welcome!
1:31 Wow
Those illistrations of the rhombic antennas on the map are to scale. 😂😅
Here in the UK in the 80's we had a call from New Zealand. The delay was about 2 seconds. LOL.
Read any book by William shirer when he was in Europe all his clothes were via shortwave and can be picked up on any radio
Phone calls
He had a large following in Germany and was legal for them to listen to it since it was considered domestic
Good God 🤣😂
Glad to be living at presents cutting edge technology. & Big thanks to all those inventions & innovators effort, i am honoured to use computers in my daily life.
Grato!
Mario, you are welcome. ~ VK, CHAP
How scaleable was this?
Are we talking one call at a time or hundreds?
One call, or maybe a couple, at a time to a destination.
Who's the narrator? Sounds like Harry Reasoner.
It does sound like him. He was working in radio at the time so it's possible.