COMMUNICATIONS, GLOBAL

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads.

—Rev. 13:16

717 World Getting Smaller

The globe is shrinking at an accelerated pace, often in ways unheard of before. Now, a major event becomes a global television spectacular. Ideas, styles, and fads speed around the world, across once-formidable barriers, and almost instantaneously. Thus, Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut was virtually crowned the world’s sweetheart by her feats relayed over television.

Satellites are presently doing mechanical and routine jobs in the communications field. They relay transoceanic phone calls, check the weather, study air and water pollution, provide secret military surveillance, and transmit television programs around the world.

718 The Intelsat

Perhaps the best known satellite transmission set-up is the Intelsat, run by the privately-owned Communications Satellite Corporation (COMSAT) of 91 individual nations.

Inaugurated in 1965, it provides over 60 countries with everything from TV and phone calls to computer data and weather reports. With 4,000 simultaneous circuits in each of its 7 orbiting satellites, voice and data transmission, as well as television link-up, are possible around the world.

719 Mailgrams From Space

It is now possible to send your mail via satellite! It is called Mailgram—a cross between a letter and a telegram. You can dictate the message by phone to any local Western Union office. The message is bounced off satellites circling above, retyped into letters, and delivered in the next morning’s mail. A half million Mailgrams now go out every week in the United States. Each letter costs about half that of a person-to-person call but is still costlier than a first-class letter.

720 “Mrs. James In China”

The manager of a department store in Wolverhampton, England, wrote a note of commendation to Gwen James, saleswoman at the china counter. He put the note into an envelope and addressed it to “Mrs. James in China.” Two months and 10,000 miles later she received the message. It had traveled all the way to China, was postmarked Peking and marked “Return to Sender.”

—Iris Hartman

721 Neither Snow Nor Rain

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” That is how Herodotus, the Greek historian, described the Persian postal system of 500 B.C.

They tell a story about the time former Postmaster General Winton Blount sat in on a brainstorming session on the problems of mail delivery. “I’ve been listening patiently now for three hours,” Blount finally said in exasperation, “and all I want is a simple answer to a simple question: If it is neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night that is holding up the mail, then just what is the trouble?”

—Congressional Record

722 Custom’s Postal Service

The crew of a German tanker used an unusual depository for their outgoing mail.

The tanker Hong Kong sailed near Honolulu but didn’t dock, officials say. So the seamen put their letters in a can attached to a wooden buoy.

A US customs patrol boat found the buoy, brought it ashore and found—in addition to the mail—$25 to cover postage and a reward for the finder’s trouble: a carton of cigarettes and a bottle of whisky.

The letters were in the mail the same afternoon, officials said.

—Associated Press

723 Chopping Up Your Voice

It is today possible to reach nearly 250 countries and territories from almost any phone in America. Twenty nations can be direct-dialed without operator assistance. This number will double in five years.

Seventy percent of the long-distance-circuit miles in the Bell System are no longer telephone lines. Signals are relayed from city to city by a network of microwave towers.

Voices no longer travel through private circuits when you make a telephone call. They are chopped up, converted to digital pulses the computer can digest, and then squeezed through existing routes with thousands of other voice signals. At the other end,. the computer separates all the pieces, puts them back together again, and out comes a voice. This is called “pulse-code modulation.”

—U. S. News & World Report

724 Speaking Via Light Rays

The next major transformation of global communications will be in the area of “fiber optics.” It is the transmitting of voices, television and computer data on beams of light.

Bell Laboratories scientists say that 4,000 simultaneous telephone conversations can be carried on a single beam. By feeding the beam into glass tubing as fine as human hair, hundreds of thousands of phone calls can be carried in a bundle of glass strands no bigger around than a pencil. Laser light will be the medium of transmission, possibly replacing copper wire altogether.

725 Global Emergency Number

The American Telephone and Telegraph Company is establishing a globe-girdling emergency number—911. Anyone, anywhere, anytime may dial 911 and receive help. The call will go to a central switchboard. From there it will go instantly to the service needed; a physician, hospital, Red Cross, the fire or police department.

726 All Roads Lead To Rome

An Italian immigrant staying in a Winnipeg hotel was eager to try all the modern conveniences, so he dialed room service to order a sandwich. The hotel switchboard operator did not understand what he wanted so she switched him to a Winnipeg operator, giving her his room number for charges. The Winnipeg operator assumed he wanted to call home and connected him to an overseas operator in Montreal who, not understanding Italian, transferred the call to Rome. When the Rome operator asked the man what he wanted, the reply was “a toasted pepperoni sandwich with lettuce and a Coke.”

—Weekend Magazine

727 French Laundry On Hot Line

Early one morning President Kennedy was in his bedroom when a special, top-secret telephone began to ring. A direct line between the president and the strategic air force bomber and missile commands, the phone was to be used only in the event of impending attack. Kennedy, expecting the worst, picked up the receiver.

“This is the president,” he said.

There was a pause.

“I must have the wrong number,” came the startled voice at the other end. “I’m trying to reach a French laundry.”

White House communications experts swarmed over the equipment for several weeks, but could never discover where the call had come from, or how it had wound up on that vital telephone line.

—Life Magazine

728 What If

If the telephone company still had to depend on the old manually operated system instead of the dial phones, there would not be enough women between the ages 18 and 40 in all of the United States to perform the job now required by telephone traffic.

—Neal O Hara

See also: Technology ; Television ; Rev 1:7; 13:8.