Huh, apparently at some time after this article was published an extra ‘e’ was added to employee because in this article it’s all employes and employe.

Heroes of the Switchboard and Phone Lines

FIRES, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes— these are some of the hazards that bring drama into the work of telephone employes. Keeping communication lines open during disasters is a vital matter. As long as nature behaves herself, as long as things go along normally, the work of the lineman, the operator, and the man on the test board is routine, but when trouble begins heroes are made.

Bricks Test Storm Resistance of Phone Wires
To determine how well telephone wires will carry the extra weight of ice during snow and sleet storms, engineers string bricks along experimental open-wire lines at the Bell Laboratories field station in Chester, N. J. It has been found that an accumulation of ice one inch in radial thickness adds about twenty-two ounces to a foot of wire, or 200 pounds on a 150-foot span.

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.

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.

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

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.