[ham-hist] undersea cables

[Ed Sharpe]

Thanks for thet walk down memory lane Jeffrey!

tthe same author did a book on telstar also!
a lot of great stuff came out of Ma Bell!

Ed Sharpe Archivist for SMECC

Jeffrey Herman wrote:

> What a coincidence -- I just finished reading a neat little book,
> "Voiceway To The Orient, First US-Japan Telephone Cable." Sixty
> pages of very fast reading, with lots of great photos of: AT&T's
> "Cable Ship Long Lines,"  the cable being manufactured, how it was
> stored on the ship, the 12-foot drum engines which paid out the
> cable to the deck, the linear cable engine which pulled the cable
> and spliced-in repeaters from the ship's hold, splicing techniques,
> insides of the repeaters.
>
> The book describes the trouble laying a cable across the Pacific --
> the deepest undersea trenches are located in this ocean; for example,
> the Marianas Trench's deepest spot is 35,800 feet, or 7 miles!!!
>
> Beginning three years prior to laying the cable, survey ships were
> dispatched to find the most economical route. The Pacific had not
> been well charted, so the route was found by trial-and-error. Land
> bridges were searched for every time a deep trench was encountered.
> The path chosen went from Oahu to Midway Island via the Hawaiian
> Undersea Ridge, through the Emperor-Seamount Chain, the Marcus-Wake
> Seamounts, then Wake Island, through the Magellan Seamounts, skirting
> the Marianas Trench, Guam Island, then along the South Honshu Undersea
> Ridge, skirting the Bayonesu Retsugan active undersea volcano, skirting
> the Iwo Oshimo active undersea volcano, finally reaching Sagami Bay in
> Tokyo. (During the survey it was discovered that Sagami Bay had dropped
> 600 feet due to an earlier earthquake. All cables within the bay had been
> severed from that quake.)
>
> The cable project cost $80M (1964 dollars). The cable would have to
> withstand 12,000 pounds per square inch, and would contain a tube
> amplifier ("repeater") every 20 miles. Each repeater was designed to
> operate for 20 years; each cost $60,000; each required 63 weeks to
> construct; each contained 6 tubes, 58 capacitors, 48 inductors,
> 3 gas tubes, 6 transformers, a crystal unit, "...as well as the
> thousands of other parts"; in the construction of the repeaters,
> more than 1500 X-rays were taken each month to spot flaws. "Each
> of the six electron tubes that goes into the assembly undergoes
> 2,978 separate tests, lasting nine months. Four out of every five
> tubes don't pass." (Wonder what tubes were used? 20 years?)
>
> A chapter was devoted to discussing armored versus armorless
> cable (this was the first use of armorless cable).
>
> The take-off point from Hawaii was located at Makaha Beach on Oahu
> (next time I'm on that side of the island, I'll have to look for
> terminal building!).
>
> Getting the cable ashore is done with divers: "From the beach,
> skin divers in scuba harness swim toward the line of breaking
> surf which the landing craft cannot pass. They tow a hawser
> attached to a winch on the beach. Once the swimmers are past
> the breakers they meet the landing craft, the hawser is attached
> to the cable, and the winch draws it in." It's supported by
> inflated balloon buoys. The technicians in the "splice pit"
> then join the cable to terminal building equipment.
>
> Louis Solomon is the author is this fine little book.
>
> Jeff KH6O
>
> P.S. I love our U.H. research library! It contains a life-time of
> reading projects for me.
>
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