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MAIL VIA ROCKET

A missile expert predicts rocket mail by 1965. Here are MI’s ideas on how the system could function.

By Frank Tinsley

IT’S Friday noon. In the home office of a giant New York corporation the final drafts of a secret merger are being signed. If they can be signed by the party of the second part in San Francisco and be back here in the office before the stock market closes—so that “buy” orders can be rushed to dealers throughout the country—a possible Monday financial slump can be averted. The atmosphere is tense. A micro- photo machine has been moved into the president’s office and a trusted operator inserts the sheets, one by one. Two tiny prints of each emerge, one for the files and one for mailing.

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Biggest Post Office TO BE BUILT IN CHICAGO

CHICAGO is to have the largest post office in the world. The fifty-acre, twelve-story building will be completed and ready for occupancy within about a year and a half, according to a recent announcement of the United States Post Office Department. It will be able to care for the 19,000.000 letters a day expected by 1943, in addition to the parcel post packages and newspapers.

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FOUR-FOOT DIAL SHOWS PHONES MYSTERIES

The intricacies of using the dial telephone come easily to students at a western secretarial school, where a four-foot dial was recently rigged up to explain its mysteries.

Not a dummy, the big dial actually works. It is connected with two telephones, an amplifying apparatus, and a loudspeaker. When the instructor dials a number, the loudspeaker reproduces, so that all may hear them, the typical sounds that will be heard; and the instructor explains to the pupils what they mean.

Extension Arm for Phone Holds the Receiver

THE strain of holding a telephone receiver to the ear for long periods has attracted the attention of inventors and a new telephone instrument recently placed on the market is equipped with an extension receiver that can be adjusted and held stationary in any convenient position, thus leaving the user’s hands free.

The receiver, to which the extension is attached by means of a flexible tube, is hung from a bracket attached to the telephone stem, while a ball weight serves to keep the hook down when the instrument is not in use. When telephoning, the user lifts the weight and places it upon a bracket, thereby releasing the hook. The extension is adjusted by bending the flexible tube.

Huge Wireless Station Receives Messages of Zeppelin on World Tour

All the latest devices of radio-land are in service in this huge wireless station at Nauen, Germany. Radio messages sent from the Graf Zeppelin on its epochal flight around the world passed through the receiving apparatus shown in the photo above. The Nauen station acted as clearing-house for the correspondents aboard the dirigible.

This is pretty damn cool. I would have loved to take a tour of my local switchboard.

“Ever Seen Your Telephone Switchboard?”

It’s a fascinating sight — the inside of a telephone central office where your telephone may be connected with the whole Bell System.

Would you like to know more about the telephone and what happens when you make a call?

Your Bell Telephone Company will be glad to show you. Visitors are welcome and we believe you will have a most interesting time. Why not call the Business Office and arrange a visit?

BELL TELEPHONE SYSTEM
You are cordially invited to visit the Bell System exhibit at Golden Gate International Exposition, San Francisco

Electric Light Warns Deaf Typist

A NOVEL arrangement has been contrived by a typist who was unable to hear the warning bell of the typewriter announcing the approach of the margin line. Seven spaces before the end of the line a light flashes on and remains on until a new line is started. This is effected by a small switch attached to the post on which the bell rest is turned on or off by the carriage of the typewriter.

The light is mounted on the end of the carriage as shown.

Microphones Run This Office

TENANTS in the Haas Building, Los Angeles, Calif., have “electrical stenographers” to serve them by means of a loud speaker system recently installed. These girls, while seated in a central office, greet callers in any office, answer tenants’ telephone calls, write letters, keep books, deliver messages, and keep undesired visitors out.

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Youngest Printers Edit Own Paper
TWO brothers, Robert Giegerich, 10, and Lorin, 15, of Prairie du Sac, Wis., have won the distinction of being the world’s youngest publishers, editors and printers, with their monthly amateur newspaper, the Prairie Bugler. Both are proficient linotype operators. Their paper began in 1934.

Radio Grill Displays Picture

THE grill, or speaker opening, of many radio sets provides a unique and artistic frame in which to display some nice photograph. Portraits are especially suitable for this purpose, and all that is required to adapt them for this purpose is to trim them down sufficiently to fit snugly in the grill opening. The edges may be slipped slightly behind the supporting strips.

The paper has no effect on the sound of the radio, but care should be taken to see that the paper will not vibrate against the wood when the radio is playing, or it may rattle. The picture provides the effect of a television set.

I love this. Of course it might be tough to compete when you’re only offering 16/7 telephone service.

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Meet Bob Wilcox

The one-man telephone system for his town’s 370 party-line patrons.

BOB WILCOX, President of Inland Telephone Company of Caledonia, Mo., a tiny hamlet with only 370 party-line customers, can be found almost any day atop a pole fixing a wire. No deskbound executive, Wilcox is also business manager, maintenance man, installation and repair man and part-time switch-board operator.

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Machine “Talks” to Blind and Deaf

An ingenious new aid, the Electro-Braille Communicator, makes it possible for the first time for anyone to “talk” with a person who is totally blind and deaf. You just tap out a message on its keyboard, arranged in standard typewriter sequence. Six moving pins in a small receiver instantly translate each letter into the corresponding raised character of the Braille alphabet. By holding a finger on the receiver, the “listener” reads the words. If he is able to speak normally, he can thus carry on a conversation. Others can signify, at least, that they have understood a message.

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