204 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1947 



The tremendous capacity of the microwave system will be used to 

 provide the large number of telegraph channels that will be required 

 for our projected reperforator switching systems. The entire United 

 States will be subdivided into 16 reperforator switching centers with 

 each center relaying, by mechanical means, all messages in the area 

 assigned to it. Thus, St. Louis, Mo., will relay all traffic for the 

 State of Illinois outside of Chicago; Minneapolis will handle every- 

 thing for North and South Dakota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, 

 Each reperforator office will have direct circuits to every other 

 reperforator point. 



When the modernization program has been completed, a message 

 from Portland, Maine, destined to Joliet, 111., will be sent from Port- 

 land to Boston over a Portland-Boston feeder carrier system. At the 

 Boston reperforation center, certain equipment will read a switching 

 code signal, which Portland inserts ahead of every message, and will 

 automatically switch the signals to a direct St. Louis carrier circuit. 

 At the St. Louis reperforation center, this intelligence will be received 

 on a printer-perforator. This device perforates the message as code 

 in the tape and at the same time prints the message on the tape. The 

 switching clerk notes the printer Joliet destination, presses the Joliet 

 button. Various circuits operate to connect the associated transmitter 

 to a Joliet circuit and start the perforated tape through the transmit- 

 ter, so that within the space of a few minutes, the message will be re- 

 ceived on a Teleprinter at Joliet. Only two switchings will be nec- 

 essary to send a message from St. Petersburg, Fla., to Sacramento, 

 Calif. The switching at the Florida area reperforation center will be 

 entirely automatic, while the received signals at the California area 

 reperforation center will be switched by pushing a button. 



Now for the first time we can send telegrams from any independent 

 Western Union office in the United States to any other independent 

 office in a matter of minutes. By means of the radio relay, which will 

 supply the multitude of circuits required, and working in conjunction 

 with the reperforator switching systems, we will have speed and de- 

 pendability that was only dreamed of a few short years ago. There 

 will be no more worrying about ice on the wires, boys shooting insula- 

 tors, kite strings in the lead, heavy wet snow and ice breaking off tele- 

 graph poles, magnetic storms, and all the other hazards of open-wire 

 communications. Thus it can be seen that great strides have been made 

 since the days of the Pony Express, and we are truly upon the thresh- 

 old of a new era in written communications. 



In conclusion, I wish to thank all my coworkers for the assistance 

 they have given me and a very special "thank you" to the boys of the 

 Carrier System Development Group in New York. 



