Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 135, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1903 — A Big Telephone Improvement. [ARTICLE]

A Big Telephone Improvement.

The work of stringing the new cables for the Jasper County Telephone Company for their Rensselaer exchange is now in progress. They are putting up 4,000 feet of the cable, in all. Of this, 700 feet are the large size containing each 204 wires, and called 200 wire cable; 1,850 feet are 100 wire cable, and 1,450 feet are 50 wire cable. The wires are of copper, about the size of a fine needle, and each separate wire is wound with tough paper, to insulate it from all the others, and all are incased in thick lead pipes, the lead itself being about an eighth of an inch in thickness. The cables vary in size, of course, in prSjlortion to the number of wires they carry. The 200 wire cables are 1J inches in diameter. These lead and copper cables are of course costly goods; and the 4,000 feet, together with a new section to the switch board, cost the company about $2,000.