Fig. 16. Vibrating Bell
[View full size illustration.]

Audible Signals. Telegraph Sounder. The earliest electric signal was an audible one, being the telegraph sounder, or the Morse register considered apart from its registering function. Each telegraph sounder serves as an audible electric signal and is capable of signifying more than that the call is being made. Such a signal is operated by the making and breaking of current from a battery. An arrangement of this kind is shown in Fig. 15, in which pressure upon the key causes the current from the battery to energize the sounder and give one sharp audible rap of the lever upon the striking post.

Vibrating Bell. The vibrating bell, so widely used as a door bell, is a device consequent to the telegraph. Its action is to give a series of blows on its gong when its key or push button closes the battery circuit. At the risk of describing a trite though not trivial thing, it may be said that when the contact 1 of Fig. 16 is closed, current from the battery energizes the armature 2, causing the latter to strike a blow on the gong and to break the line circuit as well, by opening the contact back of the armature. So de-energized, the armature falls back and the cycle is repeated until the button contact is released. A comparison of this action with that of the polarized ringer (to be described later) will be found of interest.

Fig. 17. Elemental Magneto-Generator
[View full size illustration.]

Magneto-Bell. The magneto-bell came into wide use with the spread of telephone service. Its two fundamental parts are an alternating-current generator and a polarized bell-ringing device. Each had its counterpart long before the invention of the telephone, though made familiar by the latter. The alternating-current generator of the magneto-bell consists of a rotatable armature composed of a coil of insulated wire and usually a core of soft iron, its rotation taking place in a magnetic field. This field is usually provided by a permanent magnet, hence the name "magneto-generator." The purist in terms may well say, however, that every form whatever of the dynamo-electric generator is a magneto-generator, as magnetism is one link in every such conversion of mechanical power into electricity. The terms magneto-electric, magneto-generator, etc., involving the term "magneto," have come to imply the presence of permanently magnetized steel as an element of the construction.

In its early form, the magneto-generator consisted of the arrangement shown in Fig. 17, wherein a permanent magnet can rotate on an axis before an electromagnet having soft iron cores and a winding. Reversals of magnetism produce current in alternately reversing half-cycles, one complete rotation of the magnet producing one such cycle. Obviously the result would be the same if the magnet were stationary and the coils should rotate, which is the construction of more modern devices. The turning of the crank of a magneto-bell rotates the armature in the magnetic field by some form of gearing at a rate usually of the order of twenty turns per second, producing an alternating current of that frequency. This current is caused by an effective electromotive force which may be as great as 100 volts, produced immediately by the energy of the user. In an equipment using a magneto-telephone as both receiver and transmitter and a magneto-bell as its signal-sending machine, as was usual in 1877, it is interesting to note that the entire motive power for signals and speech transmission was supplied by the muscular tissues of the user—a case of working one's passage.