Chapter 5

TELEPHONE LINES

_The line is a path over which the telephone current passes from telephone to telephone._ The term "telephone line circuit" is equivalent. "Line" and "line circuit" mean slightly different things to some persons, "line" meaning the out-of-doors portion of the line and "line circuit" meaning the indoor portion, composed of apparatus and associated wiring. Such shades of meaning are inevitable and serve useful purposes. The opening definition hereof is accurate.

A telephone line consists of two conductors. One of these conductors may be the earth; the other always is some conducting material other than the earth--almost universally it is of metal and in the form of a wire. A line using one wire and the earth as its pair of conductors has several defects, to be discussed later herein. Both conductors of a line may be wires, the earth serving as no part of the circuit, and this is the best practice. A line composed of one wire and the earth is called a _grounded line_; a line composed of two wires not needing the earth as a conductor is called a _metallic circuit_.

In the earliest telephone practice, all lines were grounded ones. The wires were of iron, supported by poles and insulated from them by glass, earthenware, or rubber insulators. For certain uses, such lines still represent good practice. For telegraph service, they represent the present standard practice.

Copper is a better conductor than iron, does not rust, and when drawn into wire in such a way as to have a sufficient tensile strength to support itself is the best available conductor for telephone lines. Only one metal surpasses it in any quality for the purpose: silver is a better conductor by 1 or 2 per cent. Copper is better than silver in strength and price.

In the open country, telephone lines consist of bare wires of copper, of iron, of steel, or of copper-covered steel supported on insulators borne by poles. If the wires on the poles be many, cross-arms carry four to ten wires each and the insulators are mounted on pins in the cross-arms. If the wires on the poles be few, the insulators are mounted on brackets nailed to the poles. Wires so carried are called _open wires_.

In towns and cities where many wires are to be carried along the same route, the wires are reduced in size, insulated by a covering over each, and assembled into a group. Such a bundle of insulated wires is called a _cable_. It may be drawn into a duct in the earth and be called an _underground cable_; it may be laid on the bottom of the sea or other water and be called a _submarine cable_; or it may be suspended on poles and be called an _aërial cable_. In the most general practice each wire is insulated from all others by a wrapping of paper ribbon, which covering is only adequate when very dry. Cables formed of paper-insulated wires, therefore, are covered by a seamless, continuous lead sheath, no part of the paper insulation of the wires being exposed to the atmosphere during the cable's entire life in service. Telephone cables for certain uses are formed of wires insulated with such materials as soft rubber, gutta-percha, and cotton or jute saturated with mineral compounds. When insulated with rubber or gutta-percha, no continuous lead sheath is essential for insulation, as those materials, if continuous upon the wire, insulate even when the cable is immersed in water. Sheaths and other armors can assist in protecting these insulating materials from mechanical injury, and often are used for that purpose. The uses to which such cables are suitable in telephony are not many, as will be shown.

A wire supported on poles requires that it be large enough to support its own weight. The smaller the wire, the weaker it is, and with poles a given distance apart, the strength of the wire must be above a certain minimum. In regions where freezing occurs, wires in the open air can collect ice in winter and everywhere open wires are subject to wind pressure; for these reasons additional strength is required. Speaking generally, the practical and economical spacing of poles requires that wires, to be strong enough to meet the above conditions, shall have a diameter not less than .08 inch, if of hard-drawn copper, and .064 inch, if of iron or steel. The honor of developing ways of drawing copper wire with sufficient tensile strength for open-air uses belongs to Mr. Thomas B. Doolittle of Massachusetts.

Lines whose lengths are limited to a few miles do not require a conductivity as great as that of copper wire of .08-inch diameter. A wire of that size weighs approximately 100 pounds per mile. Less than 100 pounds of copper per mile of wire will not give strength enough for use on poles; but as little as 10 pounds per mile of wire gives the necessary conductivity for the lines of the thousands of telephone stations in towns and cities.

Open wires, being exposed to the elements, suffer damage from storms; their insulation is injured by contact with trees; they may make contact with electric power circuits, perhaps injuring apparatus, themselves, and persons; they endanger life and property by the possibility of falling; they and their cross-arm supports are less sightly than a more compact arrangement.

Grouping small wires of telephone lines into cables has, therefore, the advantage of allowing less copper to be used, of reducing the space required, of improving appearance, and of increasing safety. On the other hand, this same grouping introduces negative advantages as well as the foregoing positive ones. It is not possible to talk as far or as well over a line in an ordinary cable as over a line of two open wires. Long-distance telephone circuits, therefore, have not yet been placed in cables for lengths greater than 200 or 300 miles, and special treatment of cable circuits is required to talk through them for even 100 miles. One may talk 2,000 miles over open wires. The reasons for the superiority of the open wires have to do with position rather than material. Obviously it is possible to insulate and bury any wire which can be carried in the air. The differences in the properties of lines whose wires are differently situated with reference to each other and surrounding things are interesting and important.

A telephone line composed of two conductors always possesses four principal properties in some amount: (1) conductivity of the conductors; (2) electrostatic capacity between the conductors; (3) inductance of the circuit; (4) insulation of each conductor from other things.

Conductivity of Conductors. The conductivity of a wire depends upon its material, its cross-section, its length, and its temperature. Conductivity of a copper wire, for example, increases in direct ratio to its weight, in inverse ratio to its length, and its conductivity falls as the temperature rises. Resistance is the reciprocal of conductivity and the properties, conductivity and resistance, are more often expressed in terms of resistance. The unit of the latter is the _ohm_; of the former the _mho_. A conductor having a resistance of 100 ohms has a conductivity of .01 mho. The exact correlative terms are _resistance_ and _conductance_, _resistivity_ and _conductivity_. The use of the terms as in the foregoing is in accordance with colloquial practice.

Current in a circuit having resistance only, varies inversely as the resistance. Electromotive force being a cause, and resistance a state, current is the result. The formula of this relation, Ohm's law, is

C = E/R

_C_ being the current which results from _E_, the electromotive force, acting upon _R_, the resistance. The units are: of current, the ampere; of electromotive force, the volt; of resistance, the ohm.

As the conductivity or resistance of a line is the property of controlling importance in telegraphy, a similar relation was expected in early telephony. As the current in the telephone line varies rapidly, certain other properties of the line assume an importance they do not have in telegraphy in any such degree.

The importance that these properties assume is, that if they did not act and the resistance of the conductors alone limited speech, transmission would be possible direct from Europe to America over a pair of wires weighing 200 pounds per mile of wire, which is less than half the weight of the wire of the best long-distance land lines now in service. The distance from Europe to America is about twice as great as the present commercial radius by land lines of 435-pound wire. In other words, good speech is possible through a mere resistance twenty times greater than the resistance of the longest actual open-wire line it is possible to talk through. The talking ratio between a mere resistance and the resistance of a regular telephone cable is still greater.

Electrostatic Capacity. It is the possession of electrostatic capacity which enables the condenser, of which the Leyden jar is a good example, to be useful in a telephone line. The simplest form of a condenser is illustrated in Fig. 28, in which two conducting surfaces are separated by an insulating material. The larger the surfaces, the closer they are together; and the higher the specific inductive capacity of the insulator, the greater the capacity of the device. An insulator used in this relation to two conducting surfaces is called the _dielectric_.

Two conventional signs are used to illustrate condensers, the upper one of Fig. 29 growing out of the original condenser of two metal plates, the lower one suggesting the thought of interleaved conductors of tin foil, as for many years was the practice in condenser construction.

With relation to this property, a telephone line is just as truly a condenser as is any other arrangement of conductors and insulators. Assume such a line to be open at the distant end and its wires to be well insulated from each other and the earth. Telegraphy through such a line by ordinary means would be impossible. All that the battery or other source could do would be to cause current to flow into the line for an infinitesimal time, raising the wires to its potential, after which no current would flow. But, by virtue of electrostatic capacity, the condition is much as shown in Fig. 30. The condensers which that figure shows bridged across the line from wire to wire are intended merely to fix in the mind that there is a path for the transfer of electrical energy from wire to wire.

A simple test will enable two of the results of a short-circuiting capacity to be appreciated. Conceive a very short line of two wires to connect two local battery telephones. Such a line possesses negligible resistance, inductance, and shunt capacity. Its insulation is practically infinite. Let condensers be bridged across the line, one by one, while conversation goes on. The listening observer will notice that the sounds reaching his ear steadily grow less loud as the capacity across the line increases. The speaking observer will notice that the sounds he hears through the receiver in series with the line steadily grow louder as the capacity across the line increases. Fig. 31 illustrates the test.

The speaker's observation in this test shows that increasing the capacity across the line increased the amount of current entering it. The hearer's observation in this test shows that increasing the capacity across the line decreased the amount of energy turned into sound at his receiver.

The unit of electrostatic capacity is the _farad_. As this unit is inconveniently large, for practical applications the unit _microfarad_--millionth of a farad--is employed. If quantities are known in microfarads and are to be used in calculations in which the values of the capacity require to be farads, care should be taken to introduce the proper corrective factor.

The electrostatic capacity between the conductors of a telephone line depends upon their surface area, their length, their position, and the nature of the materials separating them from each other and from other things. For instance, in an open wire line of two wires, the electrostatic capacity depends upon the diameter of the wires, upon the length of the line, upon their distance apart, upon their distance above the earth, and upon the specific inductive capacity of the air. Air being so common an insulating medium, it is taken as a convenient material whose specific inductive capacity may be used as a basis of reference. Therefore, the specific inductive capacity of air is taken as unity. All solid matter has higher specific inductive capacity than air.

The electrostatic capacity of two open wires .165 inch diameter, 1 ft. apart, and 30 ft. above the earth, is of the order of .009 microfarads per mile. This quantity would be higher if the wires were closer together; or nearer the earth; or if they were surrounded by a gas other than the air or hydrogen; or if the wires were insulated not by a gas but by any solid covering. As another example, a line composed of two wires of a diameter of .036 inch, if wrapped with paper and twisted into a pair as a part of a telephone-cable, has a mutual electrostatic capacity of approximately .08 microfarads per mile, this quantity being greater if the cable be more tightly compressed.

The use of paper as an insulator for wires in telephone cables is due to its low specific inductive capacity. This is because the insulation of the wires is so largely dry air. Rubber and similar insulating materials give capacities as great as twice that of dry paper.

The condenser or other capacity acts as an effective barrier to the steady flow of direct currents. Applying a fixed potential causes a mere rush of current to charge its surface to a definite degree, dependent upon the particular conditions. The condenser does not act as such a barrier to alternating currents, for it is possible to talk through a condenser by means of the alternating voice currents of telephony, or to pass through it alternating currents of much lower frequency. A condenser is used in series with a polarized ringer for the purpose of letting through alternating current for ringing the bell, and of preventing the flow of direct current.

The degree to which the condenser allows alternating currents to pass while stopping direct currents, depends on the capacity of the condenser and on the frequencies of alternating current. The larger the condenser capacity or the higher the frequency of the alternations, the greater will be the current passing through the circuit. The degree to which the current is opposed by the capacity is the reactance of that capacity for that frequency. The formula is

Capacity reactance = 1 /_C_[omega]

wherein _C_ is the capacity in farads and [omega] is 2[pi]_n_, or twice 3.1416 times the frequency.

All the foregoing leads to the generalization that the higher the frequency, the less the opposition of a capacity to an alternating current. If the frequency be zero, the reactance is infinite, _i.e._, the circuit is open to direct current. If the frequency be infinite, the reactance is zero, _i.e._, the circuit is as if the condenser were replaced by a solid conductor of no resistance. Compare this statement with the correlative generalization which follows the next thought upon inductance.

Inductance of the Circuit. Inductance is the property of a circuit by which change of current in it tends to produce in itself and other conductors an electromotive force other than that which causes the current. Its unit is the _henry_. The inductance of a circuit is one henry when a change of one ampere per second produces an electromotive force of one volt. Induction _between_ circuits occurs because the circuits possess inductance; it is called _mutual induction_. Induction _within_ a circuit occurs because the circuit possesses inductance; it is called _self-induction_. Lenz' law says: _In all cases of electromagnetic induction, the induced currents have such a direction that their reaction tends to stop the motion which produced them_.

All conductors possess inductance, but straight wires used in lines have negligible inductance in most actual cases. All wires which are wound into coils, such as electromagnets, possess inductance in a greatly increased degree. A wire wound into a spiral, as indicated in Fig. 32, possesses much greater inductance than when drawn out straight. If iron be inserted into the spiral, as shown in Fig. 33, the inductance is still further increased. It is for the purpose of eliminating inductance that resistance coils are wound with double wires, so that current passing through such coils turns in one direction half the way and in the other direction the other half.

A simple test will enable the results of a series inductance in a line to be appreciated. Conceive a very short line of two wires to connect two local battery telephones. Such a line possesses negligible resistance, inductance, and shunt capacity. Its insulation is practically infinite. Let inductive coils such as electromagnets be inserted serially in the wires of the line one by one, while conversation goes on. The listening observer will notice that the sounds reaching his ear steadily grow faint as the inductance in the line increases and the speaking observer will notice the same thing through the receiver in series with the line.

Both observations in this test show that the amount of current entering and emerging from the line decreased as the inductance increased. Compare this with the test with bridged capacity and the loading of lines described later herein, observing the curious beneficial result when both hurtful properties are present in a line. The test is illustrated in Fig. 34.

The degree in which any current is opposed by inductance is termed the reactance of that inductance. Its formula is

Inductive reactance = _L_[omega]

wherein _L_ is the inductance in henrys and [omega] is _2_[pi]_n_, or twice 3.1416 times the frequency. To distinguish the two kinds of reactance, that due to the capacity is called _capacity reactance_ and that due to inductance is called _inductive reactance_.

All the foregoing leads to the generalization that the higher the frequency, the greater the opposition of an inductance to an alternating current. If the frequency be zero, the reactance is zero, _i.e._, the circuit conducts direct current as mere resistance. If the frequency be infinite, the reactance is infinite, _i.e._, the circuit is "open" to the alternating current and that current cannot pass through it. Compare this with the correlative generalization following the preceding thought upon capacity.

Capacity and inductance depend only on states of matter. Their reactances depend on states of matter and actions of energy.

In circuits having both resistance and capacity or resistance and inductance, both properties affect the passage of current. The joint reaction is expressed in ohms and is called _impedance_. Its value is the square root of the sum of the squares of the resistance and reactance, or, Z being impedance,

------------------------- / 1 Z = / R^{2} + ---------------- \/ C^{2}[omega]^{2}

and

-------------------------- Z = / R^{2} + L^{2}[omega]^{2} \/

the symbols meaning as before.

In words, these formulas mean that, knowing the frequency of the current and the capacity of a condenser, or the frequency of the current and the inductance of a circuit (a line or piece of apparatus), and in either case the resistance of the circuit, one may learn the impedance by calculation.

Insulation of Conductors. The fourth property of telephone lines, insulation of the conductors, usually is expressed in ohms as an insulation resistance. In practice, this property needs to be intrinsically high, and usually is measured by millions of ohms resistance from the wire of a line to its mate or to the earth. It is a convenience to employ a large unit. A million ohms, therefore, is called a _megohm_. In telephone cables, an insulation resistance of 500 megohms per mile at 60° Fahrenheit is the usual specification. So high an insulation resistance in a paper-insulated conductor is only attained by applying the lead sheath to the cable when its core is made practically anhydrous and kept so during the splicing and terminating of the cable.

Insulation resistance varies inversely as the length of the conductor. If a piece of cable 528 feet long has an insulation resistance of 6,750 megohms, a mile (ten times as much) of such cable, will have an insulation resistance of 675 megohms, or one-tenth as great.

Inductance vs. Capacity. The mutual capacity of a telephone line is greater as its wires are closer together. The self-induction of a telephone line is smaller as its wires are closer together. The electromotive force induced by the capacity of a line leads the impressed electromotive force by 90 degrees. The inductive electromotive force lags 90 degrees behind the impressed electromotive force. And so, in general, the natures of these two properties are opposite. In a cable, the wires are so close together that their induction is negligible, while their capacity is so great as to limit commercial transmission through a cable having .06 microfarads per mile capacity and 94 ohms loop resistance per mile, to a distance of about 30 miles. In the case of open wires spaced 12 inches apart, the limit of commercial transmission is greater, not only because the wires are larger, but because the capacity is lower and the inductance higher.

Table I shows-the practical limiting conversation distance over uniform lines with present standard telephone apparatus.

TABLE I

Limiting Transmission Distances

+-----------------------------+----------------------+ | SIZE AND GAUGE OF WIRE | LIMITING DISTANCE | +-----------------------------+----------------------+ | No. 8 B. W. G. copper | 900 miles | | 10 B. W. G. copper | 700 miles | | 10 B. & S. copper | 400 miles | | 12 N. B. S. copper | 400 miles | | 12 B. & S. copper | 240 miles | | 14 N. B. S. copper | 240 miles | | 8 B. W. G. iron | 135 miles | | 10 B. W. G. iron | 120 miles | | 12 B. W. G. iron | 90 miles | | 16 B. & S. cable, copper | 40 miles | | 19 B. & S. cable, copper | 30 miles | | 22 B. & S. cable, copper | 20 miles | +-----------------------------+----------------------+

In 1893, Oliver Heaviside proposed that the inductance of telephone lines be increased above the amount natural for the inter-axial spacing, with a view to counteracting the hurtful effects of the capacity. His meaning was that the increased inductance--a harmful quality in a circuit not having also a harmfully great capacity--would act oppositely to the capacity, and if properly chosen and applied, should decrease or eliminate distortion by making the line's effect on fundamentals and harmonics more nearly uniform, and as well should reduce the attenuation by neutralizing the action of the capacity in dissipating energy.

There are two ways in which inductance might be introduced into a telephone line. As the capacity whose effects are to be neutralized is distributed uniformly throughout the line, the counteracting inductance must also be distributed throughout the line. Mere increase of distance between two wires of the line very happily acts both to increase the inductance and to lower the capacity; unhappily for practical results, the increase of separation to bring the qualities into useful neutralizing relation is beyond practical limits. The wires would need to be so far above the earth and so far apart as to make the arrangement commercially impossible.

Practical results have been secured in increasing the distributed inductance by wrapping fine iron wire over each conductor of the line. Such a treatment increases the inductance and improves transmission.

The most marked success has come as a result of the studies of Professor Michael Idvorsky Pupin. He inserts inductances in series with the wires of the line, so adapting them to the constants of the circuit that attenuation and distortion are diminished in a gratifying degree. This method of counteracting the effects of a distributed capacity by the insertion of localized inductance requires not only that the requisite total amount of inductance be known, but that the proper subdivision and spacing of the local portions of that inductance be known. Professor Pupin's method is described in a paper entitled "Wave Transmission Over Non-uniform Cables and Long-Distance Air Lines," read by him at a meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in Philadelphia, May 19, 1900.

NOTE. United States Letters Patent were issued to Professor Pupin on June 19, 1900, upon his practical method of reducing attenuation of electrical waves. A paper upon "Propagation of Long Electric Waves" was read by Professor Pupin before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers on March 22, 1899, and appears in Vol. 15 of the Transactions of that society. The student will find these documents useful in his studies on the subject. He is referred also to "Electrical Papers" and "Electromagnetic Theory" of Oliver Heaviside.

Professor Pupin likens the transmission of electric waves over long-distance circuits to the transmission of mechanical waves over a string. Conceive an ordinary light string to be fixed at one end and shaken by the hand at the other; waves will pass over the string from the shaken to the fixed end. Certain reflections will occur from the fixed end. The amount of energy which can be sent in this case from the shaken to the fixed point is small, but if the string be loaded by attaching bullets to it, uniformly throughout its length, it now may transmit much more energy to the fixed end.

The addition of inductance to a telephone line is analogous to the addition of bullets to the string, so that a telephone line is said to be _loaded_ when inductances are inserted in it, and the inductances themselves are known as _loading coils_.

Fig. 35 shows the general relation of Pupin loading coils to the capacity of the line. The condensers of the figure are merely conventionals to represent the condenser which the line itself forms. The inductances of the figure are the actual loading coils.

The loading of open wires is not as successful in practice as is that of cables. The fundamental reason lies in the fact that two of the properties of open wires--insulation and capacity--vary with atmospheric change. The inserted inductance remaining constant, its benefits may become detriments when the other two "constants" change.

The loading of cable circuits is not subject to these defects. Such loading improves transmission; saves copper; permits the use of longer underground cables than are usable when not loaded; lowers maintenance costs by placing interurban cables underground; and permits submarine telephone cables to join places not otherwise able to speak with each other.

Underground long-distance lines now join or are joining Boston and New York, Philadelphia and New York, Milwaukee and Chicago. England and France are connected by a loaded submarine cable. There is no theoretical reason why Europe and America should not speak to each other.

The student wishing to determine for himself what are the effects of the properties of lines upon open or cable circuits will find most of the subject in the following equation. It tells the value of _a_ in terms of the four properties, _a_ being the attenuation constant of the line.

That is, the larger _a_ is, the more the voice current is reduced in passing over the line. The equation is

----------------------------------------------------------------------- / ----------------------------------------------- a= /½ /(R^{2}+L^{2}[omega]^{2})(S^{2}+C^{2}[omega]^{2} + ½(RS-LC[omega]^{2} \/ \/

The quantities are

R = Resistance in ohms L = Inductance in henrys C = Mutual (shunt) capacity in farads [omega] = 2[pi]_n_ = 6.2832 times the frequency S = Shunt leakage in mhos

The quantity _S_ is a measure of the combined direct-current conductance (reciprocal of insulation resistance) and the apparent conductance due to dielectric hysteresis.

NOTE. An excellent paper, assisting such study, and of immediate practical value as helping the understanding of cables and their reasons, is that of Mr. Frank B. Jewett, presented at the Thousand Islands Convention of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, July 1, 1909.