Transatlantic Cable Communications

"the Original Information Highway"
Canso & Hazel Hill

Tools of the Trade

At the Whitman House Museum in Canso, Nova Scotia, there is a cable communications display which contains photographs and artifacts from the cable era.
Here is a photographic sample of some of the items in this display.

Glass Battery - There were seven to eight hundred of these batteries located at Commercial Cable, lining many insulated shelves in a special room. These provided the electricity for transmitting messages over the cables.

Cable Relay - used to strengthen the signal received over the cable. Messages transmitted across the Atlantic became weakened and required this device.

Telegraph Key - used in sending out messages in code over the wires. Operators could often identify each other simply by the "touch" on the key.

Sections of Cable - various types of cable laid across the Atlantic. Note: Most of the outside wires provided strength and support to the conductive wires at the centre.

Cable Line Indicator - a bell system that let the operators know which cable was calling. The small flags in the boxes indicated the source of the incoming message, for example, a cable message could be coming in from either New York, Horta in the Azores, Britain or Ireland.

Headphones - listening device used under varying circumstances to hear signals.

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