Machine Comes to Telegrapher’s Aid.
Telegraph operators throughout the country are showing keen interest in a device perfected by Walter P. Phillips, of Bridgeport, Conn., for the purpose of rapidly handling commercial messages and press reports. Phillips is an old-time telegrapher and newspaper man and an inventor of wide fame. He was the originator of the “Phillips Code,” used by newspapers. Operators from all parts of Connecticut gathered at Bridgeport to watch the demonstration of the new device.
It was shown that the invention will allow an operator receiving messages or news dispatches to regulate the incoming flow of telegraphy as fast or as slow as he may desire; to stop it altogether and go out to lunch, resuming business at increased speed upon his return, and catching up with the machine upon which the messages or news has been continually recording itself in impressions of dots and dashes on a tape awaiting reproduction. What the invention will do is to double or treble the number of words that can be sent over a single wire and do it without requiring that the operators learn anything more than they now know.
The result is brought about by adding to each office a set of very simple instruments. At times when there is no need of hurrying matter forward on the wires, the rapid system can be cut out through shifting a plug. The wires are then used in the ordinary way, sending messages directly by the key. As a result it is considered that the system is one of value principally to telegraph companies or those using leased wires. The general public, however, will benefit through the prompter sending of messages and doing away with the delay so often experienced when there are wire troubles and capacity is reduced below normal.
In the new system the messages or reports to be sent are recorded in raised telegraphic characters on a strip of paper. This paper is run through a reproducing machine, the sounds being repeated at the other end of the wire and being taken down by typewriter or hand. The sending operator is able to vary the speed to suit himself, is able to stop it at any point and pull it back, if there is need of repeating. The superiority of the invention over the old system is said to lie in the reading and sending. It is in this, telegraphers say, where the greater number of mistakes occur. The ear of a trained operator is found to be more accurate than the eye and also faster.