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Message Digest 
Volume 28 : Issue 308 : "text" Format

Messages in this Issue:
  Inquiry: former AT&T shortwave radiotelephone station in Lawrenceville, NJ
  Re: Inquiry: former AT&T shortwave radiotelephone station in Lawrenceville, NJ
  Re: Inquiry: former AT&T shortwave radiotelephone station in Lawrenceville, NJ
  Re: Inquiry: former AT&T shortwave radiotelephone station in Lawrenceville, NJ
  Re: Area code 533 assigned for personal communications services
  Re: Comcast seeks NBC-U (continued)
  Re: Comcast seeks NBC-U (continued)


====== 28 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer, and other stuff of interest.
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 07:20:50 -0500 From: Dennis Waters <dpwaters@gmail.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Inquiry: former AT&T shortwave radiotelephone station in Lawrenceville, NJ Message-ID: <757e65b90911080420m257e7a6av2054301e16669896@mail.gmail.com> I am the Township Historian in Lawrenceville, New Jersey (near Trenton and Princeton). I am in the midst of compiling a history of the former AT&T shortwave transmission facility that operated in our town beginning in 1929. For three decades it was the primary outbound telephone link from the USA to Europe and Latin America. At its peak it could generate one million watts on the 16, 22, and 32 meter bands. The 800-acre site is now a county park. Here are three questions I would like to throw out to the community: (1) Does anyone have any personal memories, photographs, or documents regarding this station, or know of someone who might? (2) Can anyone suggest why this particular site was chosen? Proximity to New York was one factor, but AT&T documents say "extensive tests" were conducted before settling on the site. I have had no luck in finding any. I assume this has something to do with ground conductivity but I am no expert on this. (3) The initial antenna system in 1929 was of the "curtain" variety and it is well documented. Subsequently that system was replaced by a rhombic system, probably in the 1940s. There is very little documentation on this system and I would like to find some. The rhombic system remained in place until the station was decommissioned in 1963. Thanks in advance for any help. Please feel free to forward this query to other lists or individuals. And apologies if you received more than one query due to cross-posting. Dennis Waters Township Historian Lawrence Township, New Jersey
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 10:27:34 -0800 (PST) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Inquiry: former AT&T shortwave radiotelephone station in Lawrenceville, NJ Message-ID: <de3864a4-67fc-42ac-a826-51bd0c29bb41@v25g2000yqk.googlegroups.com> On Nov 8, 7:20 am, Dennis Waters <dpwat...@gmail.com> wrote: > I am in the midst of compiling a history of the former AT&T > shortwave transmission facility that operated in our town beginning > in 1929. Bell Labs wrote a multi-volume history of the company which includes extensive chapters on radio-telephone work. They may be in Vols 1 or 2. They may give insights into why Lawrenceville was chosen. Rider University Library should have copies of them. Extensive studies were done at that time into radio wave propagation and reception and probably was a factor in site selection. There are two telephone history groups that may be able to help you: Telephone Collectors International and Antique Telephone Collectors Association.
Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:35:54 -0500 From: Eric Tappert <e.tappert.spamnot@worldnet.att.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Inquiry: former AT&T shortwave radiotelephone station in Lawrenceville, NJ Message-ID: <nrugf5dsu07cp53ovvc1loq02uba24mkue@4ax.com> On Sun, 8 Nov 2009 07:20:50 -0500, Dennis Waters <dpwaters@gmail.com> wrote: > I am the Township Historian in Lawrenceville, New Jersey (near Trenton > and Princeton). > > I am in the midst of compiling a history of the former AT&T shortwave > transmission facility that operated in our town beginning in 1929. For > three decades it was the primary outbound telephone link from the USA > to Europe and Latin America. At its peak it could generate one million > watts on the 16, 22, and 32 meter bands. The 800-acre site is now a > county park. > > Here are three questions I would like to throw out to the community: > > (1) Does anyone have any personal memories, photographs, or documents > regarding this station, or know of someone who might? > > (2) Can anyone suggest why this particular site was chosen? Proximity > to New York was one factor, but AT&T documents say "extensive tests" > were conducted before settling on the site. I have had no luck in > finding any. I assume this has something to do with ground > conductivity but I am no expert on this. > > (3) The initial antenna system in 1929 was of the "curtain" variety > and it is well documented. Subsequently that system was replaced by a > rhombic system, probably in the 1940s. There is very little > documentation on this system and I would like to find some. The > rhombic system remained in place until the station was decommissioned > in 1963. > > Thanks in advance for any help. Please feel free to forward this query > to other lists or individuals. And apologies if you received more than > one query due to cross-posting. > > Dennis Waters > Township Historian > Lawrence Township, New Jersey Dennis, The book "A History of Science and Technology in the Bell System, Volume 1, The Early Years" has several pages of detail surrounding the Lawrenceville station (starting on page 410). Apparently the site was chosen to minimize interference from other stations and was used for US - London ( circuits) and US- Buenos Aires (one circuit). The transmitter was at Lawrenceville and the receiver was at Netcong, NJ. The book contains block diagrams of the antenna and the transmitter. Unfortunately, the book is out of print. Check with your local libraries or Bell Labs Murray Hill (if it still exists....) to see if they have a copy. Eric T.
Date: 10 Nov 2009 03:38:08 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Inquiry: former AT&T shortwave radiotelephone station in Lawrenceville, NJ Message-ID: <20091110033808.51529.qmail@simone.iecc.com> > ... documentation on this system and I would like to find some. The > rhombic system remained in place until the station was > decommissioned in 1963. I moved to Princeton in 1964, and I distinctly remember the poles and wires being up for a long time after that, perhaps into the 1970s. There was (and is) an orchard across the street where we bought apple cider so we'd be out that way at least several times a year. R's, John
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 17:39:16 +0000 (UTC) From: ranck@vt.edu To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Area code 533 assigned for personal communications services Message-ID: <hd9k44$7j2$1@solaris.cc.vt.edu> Joseph Singer <joeofseattle@yahoo.com> wrote: > Actually, there is a way to tell if a number is a mobile number or a > regular number. Go to https://www.wirelessamberalerts.org/index.jsp > and input a 10-digit number. The result will either give the name of > the mobile operating company or you'll get an error message that the > number you have input is not a wireless number. > If you wish to see who that area code and CO prefix holds that > numbering space go to http://www.telcodata.us. It even lists down > to 'thousands' block in the numbering. It's still possible that the > number could have been ported to another entity e.g. it was held by > the ILEC and then transferred to the CLEC or vice versa. Well, the first web link correctly identified my wireless carrier for a ported number that used to be a Verizon land line at my house. The number was ported several years ago, so whatever databse they are using has had time to catch up. Bill Ranck Blacksburg, Va.
Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:10:58 -0800 From: John David Galt <jdg@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Comcast seeks NBC-U (continued) Message-ID: <hd9pje$cbd$1@blue.rahul.net> Geoffrey Welsh wrote: > Do advertising limits even make sense in the day of 24/7 shopping > channels? That's funny, I was about to ask exactly the opposite question. Now that we have the Web on which to look up whatever we want to buy, and it has plenty of good comparison sites, all ads in other media (except maybe those media that exist only for the purpose of ads, like the Penny Saver) have lost their usefulness to the consuming public. In effect they are nothing but nagging. Why does the TV watching public continue to put up with them, at all, ever? Do we need the commercials to tell us it's time to go to the bathroom? Fortunately, Tivo and its competitors are rapidly making TV ads so easy to skip that they're becoming as useless to businesses as they are to consumers. Now Hollywood is just left with the problem of making TV shows good enough that people will pay for them. I predict the demise of free (unencrypted) over-the-air TV any day.
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:33:56 +0000 (UTC) From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Comcast seeks NBC-U (continued) Message-ID: <hdb1gk$12rm$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu> In article <hd9pje$cbd$1@blue.rahul.net>, John David Galt <jdg@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us> wrote: >Fortunately, Tivo and its competitors are rapidly making TV ads so >easy to skip that they're becoming as useless to businesses as they >are to consumers. Except, of course, that the latest research shows quite the opposite: most people can't be bothered to skip the commercials. See, for example, <http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/11/06/03>. -GAWollman -- Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
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End of The Telecom digest (7 messages)

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