[GreenKeys] Copper Wire?

[telegrapher at att.net]

Copperclad steel was used for the telephone lines in the early years. 
Matter of fact it's still used a lot in rural counties/states.  The 
reason?  tensile strength and the spacing of the poles.  Rural delivery 
lines had poles with a much wider spacing that toll lines so wire 
strength was much more important.  It also meant that farmers had to 
pull harder once their combines, disks and other implements were fully 
attached to the wires when they drove under or in very close proximity 
to the telephone right-away. It's very springy and if a span breaks you 
find yourself untangling one of those slinky things that your 2 year old 
has created.  It also happened with trucks etc.

It requires a rope block and tackle, 10 feet or so long to be able to 
get things back together.  Connections to or splices were made with a 
crimp type connections using a Nicropress sleeve roller.  Trying to 
splice a wire in midspan (between two poles) was always a challenge. 
Once you got the wire spliced back together and released tension off the 
block and tackle to take up the slack, you'd find at least one end of 
the repair mechanism hanging from the wire 8-10 feet above where you 
were standing , which was a lot of the time on a grade below the road, 
over a ditch or someplace where you had to be tall or a wizard at 
retrieving said equipment.  Placing a ladder against the wire in order 
to retrieve the block and tackle was not advised as this could cause an 
additional wire(s) to part and we know what that means.  It's sometimes 
indusive to increasing the vocabulary describing working conditions and 
wishing retirement was closer!  Real copper wire was i believe used on 
Toll circuits (between towns/cities etc.) while copperclad steel was 
used on local exchange lines.

AND, you don't want to be standing close by in the event this wire 
(under tension) parts. Can cause nasty marks on the body much more sever 
that the spouse would impart upon you once finding out you'd been out 
fishing with the boys but had left your fishing tackle at home!

I used to have a chart around here that gave the gage, .104 copper or 
something like that.  Been 30 years ago and the memory is failing.
Lotta memories about working Open Wire lines.  Ahhhh yes, the good ol' 
days of Bell Telephone and AT&T Longlines!  Quality and standardization 
did make a difference.

The railroad facilities that you sometimes see still standing abandoned 
may have used similar wire, copperclad steel or even Iron wire.  Still a 
couple of miles of it through town here that's been laying in disarray 
for years.  No attempt by the railroad to clean it out.

Interesting thread.  Guess i got on my soapbox so if it was boring, hit 
the key that makes it go away.

Larry
W0OGH


Paul Wills wrote:

> I don't have the specific date but I believe that copper telephone wire was
> not used until Thomas Dolittle developed a hard drawn copper wire that had
> the necessary tensile strength.
> 
> A search on Dolittle and "hard drawn" should turn up a date.
> 
> I would guess that this was in the 1880's or 90's.  Certainly, transmission
> characteristics of wire for telephone service were much more important than
> for telegraph as there were not yet any ways to amplify voice signals.
> 
> PDW
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <jhhaynes at earthlink.net>
> To: "Brooke Clarke" <brooke at pacific.net>
> Cc: <greenkeys at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2007 9:29 PM
> Subject: Re: [GreenKeys] Copper Wire?
> 
> 
> 
>>I've read that for early telegraph circuits they didn't use copper,
>>because aside from the cost it was of poor quality and had very low
>>tensile strength.  Hence they used iron.  Wonder when they started
>>refining copper electrolytically.
>>
>>Bell wire in my childhood, say late 1940s, was bare copper wire about
>>18ga wrapped with a spiral red and white waxed cotton thread.  Used
>>for hooking up doorbells, but a lot of radio projects and such told
>>you to use bellwire, because you could get it at any hardware store
>>and it was fairly cheap.
>>
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> 
> 
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