352 BELL SYSTEM TECHNICAL JOURNAL 



165 mil open-wire pairs, and a high-efficiency non-phantom type repeating 

 coil for Type B composite ringers. The existing standard 37A phantom- 

 deriving repeating coil had been developed for use on lines operated on a 

 16-cycle ring-down basis, and had very good "ring-through" characteris- 

 tics. In consequence of this feature, the speech transmission loss was quite 

 substantial, being of the order of 1.5 db per coil at each end of a phantomed 

 circuit. Two such coils, at opposite ends of a phantomed non-loaded 165 

 mil circuit, were equivalent to an extension of the length of the line by 

 about 100 miles. This was too much of a transmission and economic 

 penalty to be acceptable on expensive 165 mil circuits. By sacrificing the 

 16-cycle ring-through properties, it turned out to be a relatively simple job 

 to reduce the transmission loss in the new coils to values below 20% of the 

 loss in the 37A coil. In circuits equipped with the new coils, the signaling 

 was accomplished by "composite" ringing (135-cycles). 



Headquarters State Engineers Visit the Pacific Coast 



There occurred late in 1908 and early in 1909 a Pacific Coast visit of 

 several headquarters staff engineers which had an important place in the 

 sequence of events that preceded the American Company's decision to 

 provide transcontinental telephone service. Jewett participated in this 

 expedition, and was joined later by Messrs. Carty, Gherardi, and others. 

 The initial purpose of Jewett's trip was to advise the Pacific Tel. & Tel. 

 engineers how to improve transmission conditions in certain parts of their 

 territory, notably in the Oakland area, and on trunks to San Francisco, 

 and also in the Los Angeles-Pasadena area. Aggressive competition by 

 local independent companies was a factor in these problems. Improve- 

 ments were also needed in the Pacific Company's long distance toll plant. 

 An extensive use of loading was indicated. There were also a number of 

 pressing inductive interference problems. 



Before Jewett had finished his work on these various problems, Messrs. 

 Carty and Gherardi reached San Francisco to consider with the Pacific 

 Company executives some revisions in their 1909 budget, covering exten- 

 sive plant additions that had become desirable. (Here again the competi- 

 tive situation was a factor.) It was inevitable that Carty should become 

 more deeply concerned with the telephonic isolation of the Pacific Coast 

 when he was there and unable to talk to his staff in New York, than when he 

 was in his own office in the east. This isolation was very real and oppres- 

 sive; not only was there a large geographic gap in the wire plants of the As- 

 sociated Companies, between the Pacific Coast area and the middle west, 

 but also the limit then current on telephone transmission over the best 

 available type of circuit was considerably less than one-half of the mini- 

 mum transcontinental distance. Under the circumstances, it was natural 

 that during his Pacific Coast trip Carty should spend considerable time with 



