Article ID: CBB851114521

The Sound and Shapes of Noise: Measuring Disturbances in Early Twentieth-Century Telephone and Radio Engineering (2012)

unapi

In this paper, I examine efforts of telephone and radio engineers and researchers from 1910 to 1940 to measure noise as unwanted signals. Two approaches were adopted, one aural, the other visual. The staff of American Telephone and Telegraph Company employed an ear-balancing method, in which a measurer determined the intensity of noise by comparing it with a standard referential tone. This method relied on assumptions about the human measurer's aural perception. It had a close relationship with the research at Bell Laboratories on speech recognition and hearing physiology. Also, it was used to measure the electrical noise in telephone transmission lines and atmospheric electromagnetic static that interfered with radio communications for the purpose of gauging and improving the performance of the telecommunication systems. On the other hand, physicists at the U.K. Radio Research Board applied the oscilloscope to record the waveforms of atmospheric static. Built upon work on cathode-ray displays, this method inherited a long visual tradition of curve tracing. The choice of this method was associated with their aim of measurement: to reveal the detailed processes of meteorological events that incurred electric discharge and, more importantly, to determine the exact locations of such events. These attempts to measure noise indicated a trend of conceiving concrete acoustic noise in terms of abstract, informational noise.

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Authors & Contributors
Yasar, Kerim
Asseraf, Arthur
González, Joaquín Cruz
Corbacho, Francisco Piniella
Maling, George C., Jr.
Schwarz, Frederic
Concepts
Telegraphs; telephones
Radio
Engineering
Cross-national comparison
Noise and noise abatement
Technology
Time Periods
20th century, early
19th century
20th century
21st century
18th century
Places
United States
Great Britain
Germany
Niagara Falls
New York City (New York, U.S.)
Spain
Institutions
Marconi Company
International Telephone and Telegraph Company
Bell Telephone Laboratories
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