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Bell Telephone Laboratories
used to run some pretty interesting advertisements in magazines back in the 1940s
through 1960s that touted the many communications innovations coming from their
scientists and engineers. They built what was indisputably the worlds best, most
reliable telephone network. It, along with the
Interstate Highway System, is credited for a large part of what fueled America's
growth so significantly after World War II. This ad from a 1949 issue of
Radio & Television News magazine tells how repairmen used a specially
designed sensor to trace out faulty phone lines by listening for a test signal sent
out by the central office.
What caught my attention about this ad was the uncanny resemblance the man in
the photo has to Melanie's father - especially with the ball cap and glasses. She
was amazed when I showed her the picture.
Another thing the picture brought to mind was that the owner of an electric company
(Simpson Electric) I worked for prior to going into the USAF landed a spot
in an
Ivory Soap commercial when they were doing a series of commercials
featuring construction workers that depended on Ivory ("99-44/100% Pure: It Floats")
to clean the grime from their hands and bodies at the end of a hard day. He had
been a lineman earlier in his career.
Bell Telephone Laboratories Ad
 He finds trouble by ear.
As this cableman runs his pickup coil along the cable, his ear tells him when
he has hit the exact spot where unseen trouble is interfering with somebody's telephone
service.
Trouble develops when water enters a cable sheath cracked perhaps by a bullet
or a flying stone. With insulation damaged, currents stray from one wire to another
or to the sheath. At the telephone office, electrical tests on the faulty wires
tell a repairman approximately where to look for the damage.
A special "tracer" current, sent over the faulty wires, generates a magnetic
field. Held against the sheath, an exploring coil picks up the distinctive tracer
signal and sends it through an amplifier on the man's belt to head-phones. A change
in signal strength along the cable tells the exact location of the "fault."
Compact; light, simple to use, this test set makes it easier for repairmen to
keep your line in order. It is another example of how Bell Laboratories re-search
helps make Bell Telephone service the most dependable in the world.
Bell Telephone Laboratories
Exploring and inventing, devising and perfecting, for continued improvements
and economies in telephone service.
Posted September 1, 2023
(updated from original post on 11/26/2018)
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