[telecom] No cause for alarm

I cannot find anything online either supporting or refuting this story, but I'll pass it along nonetheless.

I'm an avid radio hobbyist (think ham radio, police, fire, shortwave). About 10 years ago the last telegraph operator retired from the Chicago Fire Department. Telegraph you ask? Each fire house had a telegraph operator. Two-way radio should have made the telegraph obsolete, but CFD kept their telegraph operators on board. Perhaps it was union rules? Or maybe the fire department wanted to pad their numbers. In any case you have to wonder who the lone telegraph operator chatted with since there wasn't anyone on the other end of his key.

John

I remember Telephony magazine back around the early 1950s was often running editorials about why cities should get rid of the antiquated fire alarm box system and replace it with telephones. One reason was to get more detailed information about the fire, and another was to deter false alarms.

One big reason is the current wireless phone carriers are allowed to provide their service on a where-is as-is basis instead of the Five Nines basis the old Bell System and independent telcos were required to.

Another biggie is not everyone has a cellphone.

In addition the Gamewell system will survive Electro Magnetic Pulse events which would kill current wireless systems.

Also, wireless sites during a power outage will only stay up as long as the owner can keep their backup generator fueled.

And FYI, I believe Mother Nature has far more potential to disrupt communications than any adherents to alleged Middle Eastern deities and prophets.

My grandfather was a telegraph operator for the old Great Northern Railroad, he stayed on the job after they did away with the telegraph, his title never changed but from what I remember he was a station master. He tried to get me to go to work for the railroad many years after he retired, they were looking to telecom people, but I chose the telephone company. I wondered why I made that choice, the railroad might have been better just because of the retirement.

The telegraph worker they were referring to was undoubtedly a dispatcher, outside wireman, or a public fire alarm telegraph maintainer. It was never true that Chicago Fire Houses had telegraph operators per se: it was the Firefighters themselves who would use Morse code between stations and to pass traffic to and from dispatch.

The Chicago Fire Department did have a large staff of outside wiremen, dispatchers, telegraph apparatus maintainers, etcetera: up until World War Two _any_ fire department protecting a major city had such a staff. Department official business was conducted in bell code and American Morse code, and in cities were it was permitted it was quite common for the senior firefighters that would be assigned to the lighter duty of the watch desk to hold long conversations with other houses by telegraph over what was commonly called the "Joker" circuit.

Even small towns had to have a telegraph dispatcher on duty. The main alarm circuit would sound one stroke of the bells for each tap of the dispatchers key (that circuit was called the "Tapper" circuit). Company officers, chiefs aids, and the chiefs themselves were at least minimally proficient in genuine [American] Morse code.

In the years since World War Two many of the old fire alarm telegraph systems have been decommissioned and their equipment sold off to collectors. San Fransisco still maintains its fire alarm telegraph system as a hedge against earthquake damage to the Public Switched Telephone Network, but any business conducted by telegraph is done using the Continental telegraph code, better known to some as the International Morse code (yes, I know there are a few small differences between the two).

The change to International code was brought about in San Francisco and many other cities by the fact that many of the returning veterans of WW2 had been trained in radio telegraph code. To this day in many large cities the legacy of the old telegraph code continues in such minor things as the code spoken over the load speaker to warn the firefighters that children or public officials have entered the house.

In New York City every radio transmission ends with a spoken K which is a left over from the Morse code abbreviation OK meaning over to you and clear to send. K was used for clear because C was in use for something else. I do love hearing the "bahoys" saying "start the water K." "Understood K." "On location K"... You'll just have to imagine these phrases spoken with a New York accent. Alternatively you can go to

We had a presentation at our radio club some months ago about the women telegraphers of World War Two. One lady could pound out [American] Morse with her fist as fast as she could copy International code by ear, and vice versa: she worked in one of the coastal radio stations and the military traffic she copied from ships in International code had to be forwarded on via land lines in [American] Morse.

Tom Horne --

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"This alternating current stuff is just a fad. It is much too dangerous for general use." Thomas Alva Edison

I have added "[American]" in some places to make it clear which version of the "Morse" code the poster is referring to.

I'm always fascinated by the ways that technology changes all aspects of our lives, and especially at the way it brings benefits that sometimes do not outweigh their costs. For example, the reason that T-Mobile prospered so quickly with its push-to-talk radio system is that corporate managers realized this "Throwback" to an earlier mode was actually helping them: field personel, deprived of the feedback provided by a two-way telephone call, were actually _thinking_ about what they wanted to say, in advance, and saying it more concisely to boot, thus speeding communications and improving accuracy at the same time.

While we could debate endlessly about whether it's more efficient to provide firefighters with radios or to require them to learn Morse code, the fact remains that the limited speed of the Morse wires prevented lower level commanders from sending too much detail to their bosses when requesting resources or resupply, and that lack of details effectively forced junior officers to make decisions in the field instead of passing the buck, which made them better leaders and kept trivial matters low enough in the chain of command that the brass had time to watch a bigger picture.

Bill Horne Temporary Moderator