Phonofor telegraph equipment New Zealand - Printable Version

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Phonofor telegraph equipment New Zealand - Antipodal - 09-24-2026

i    Hi      everyone, This is a bit of a long shot but Google has not provided an answer - and perhaps it will be clear why.  
I  have come across a   New Zealand newspaper article from 1911 which describes a demonstration  here  in Wellington  , our capital city , of a piece of apparatus called a "Phonofor " .  This equipment allowed voice transmission along a morse telegraph line of over 100 miles long apparently as clear as a bell with none of the buzzing which apparently characterised attempts at trying to send voice messages along a telegraph line usually dedicated to morse transmission. 
The reason I am interested is because this demonstration , to a small group of interested railway personel back in 1911 was conducted by my great grandfather who was at that time the second in charge electrical engineer for  the New Zealand Government  Railways. 
Another newspaper cutting describes him overseeing the installation of electric lighting in the Invercargill locomotive roundhouse, current being provided by a gas engine and generator installed nearby.
If anyone can throw any light on what the Phonofor was and /or how it worked I would be very grateful. The reason I have tried here on the Phorum is because New Zealand Railways did source much of its equipment from the United States, Baldwin locomotives being one such . Thanks everyone.

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RE: Phonofor telegraph equipment New Zealand - MrFixr55 - 09-24-2026

Hi Antipodal,

See this link:
http://www.samhallas.co.uk/railway/phonopore.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condenser_telephone

Hope this helps.

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RE: Phonofor telegraph equipment New Zealand - Joe Rossi - 09-24-2026

MrFixr, You never cease to amaze me! I spent over an hour this morning with no results. Joe

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RE: Phonofor telegraph equipment New Zealand - MrFixr55 - 09-27-2026

I got lucky, I guess. I searched for Phonophor, scanned through the ads (Find Phonophor on eBay!), and sometimes one gets lucky. I found the Wikipedia article, and within the article, I found the samhallas article. I wonder if Antipodal's great-grandfather is one of the names mentioned.

These were very interesting articles as this technology precedes vacuum tubes but the inventors used inductors (transformers?) and capacitors as filters to allow Morse code and voice on the same line and possibly at the same time. and by "Line", we are talking about single conductor, the earth being the second conductor, which in itself is kind of amazing. (I don't think that using the earth as a conductor worked too well in a desert.) All of this without vacuum tubes, modulation of RF, multiplexing, etc.

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RE: Phonofor telegraph equipment New Zealand - Arran - 09-28-2026

Antipodal;
So did the N.Z railways use North American/Canadian gauge track to go with the Baldwin locomotives, or did they use narrow gauge like they did in Britain.
Regards
Arran

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