408 BELL SYSTEM TECHNICAL JOURNAL 



telephony in the marine field, such as that of enabling a coastal station 

 operator to talk with coast guard vessels, fishing trawlers, etc. 



This paper is concerned with the developments which have been 

 carried out in the United States, including the establishment of trans- 

 mitting and receiving stations on the New Jersey coast, the equipping 

 of the Leviathan and the establishment of service to that ship. 



It is significant of the wide-spread interest in this type of service that 



developments have also gone forward rapidly on the European side 



where the British, Germans, and French are preparing coastal stations 



and equipping some of the larger ships for public telephone service. 



The British have already initiated service to two of the White Star 



Liners, the Olympic and the Majestic, and before the summer is over it 



is likely that half a dozen of the larger transatlantic vessels will be 



undertaking this service, connecting with both the American and the 



European networks.^ 



Early Developments 



Attempts to apply telephony in the maritime field date back to the 

 pioneer work on radio telephony itself, but it was not until the applica- 

 tion of the vacuum tube were developed that radio telephony for any 

 service became finally practicable. 



Following the long distance, point-to-point radio telephone experi- 

 ments of 1915, there was carried out in the following year what is 

 believed to have been the first trial of two-way radio telephony from 

 the wire telephone system to a vessel at sea. This trial was conducted 

 by Bell System engineers in cooperation with the Navy Department. 

 On that occasion the Secretary of the Navy, in his office in Washington, 

 carried on two-way conversations with the captain of the U. S. S. New 

 Hampshire oflf Hampton Roads. 



Following the further development of radio telephony during the 

 War, there was undertaken, in the years 1920-1922, an extensive devel- 

 opment of ship-to-shore radio telephony, looking toward the linking of 

 ships at sea with the land line telephone network.- At that time there 

 was built a coastal radio telephone station at Deal Beach, N. J., and 

 several ships were equipped on a trial basis. Extensive engineering 

 tests were made and a number of demonstrations carried out which 

 proved the physical feasibility of establishing such connections. 



W^hile the trials were successful from the technical standpoint, the 

 development was not carried into commercial use because the adverse 

 economic conditions existing in the post-W^ar period did not appear to 



^ Ship-to-shore telephone service is now given (July, 1930) from both U. S. 

 and British shores to'the Leviathan, Olympic, Majestic and Homeric. 



-"Radio Extension"" of the Telephone System to Ships at Sea," by H. W. 

 Nichols and Lloyd Espenschied, /. R. E. Proceedings, Vol. 11, 1923. 



