We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
The Dictaphone High-Speed Recorder
163
MACHINE USED FOR HIGH-SPEED TRANS-OCEAN RECEIVING
By the New York Times. A single motor operates two recording machines which are arranged so that one takes up the recording when the record on the other is nearly filled. Messages may be received at a very high speed which is reduced when the record is placed on the transcribing machine. Records containing important messages may be preserved
indefinitely
by the conditions and speed of the transmitting station. The gears at the left of the mandrel on one machine being in mesh, this machine alone begins recording. When the carriage has nearly reached the end of the cylinder, it is automatically thrown out of gear and the other machine is started. This second machine begins recording a few revolutions before the first is stopped, so that no part of the message can be lost during the shift.
The operator in attendance then moves the carriage of No. i machine back to the starting point, and slips a fresh cylinder in place. When the.carriage of No. 2 nears the end of the cylinder, No. i is automatically cut in, and the operation repeated as long as desired. When the Dictaphone is receiving high-speed messages, it is found by actual practice that the cylinders should make about one hundred and fifty revolutions per minute.
TRANSCRIBING THE MESSAGE
IN transcribing from the imprinted cylinder, a special Dictaphone is used with rubber hose attachment to fit the operator's head, somewhat like the ordinary head telephone
receivers. For best results, the cylinder should now be reduced to about ninety revolutions per minute, enabling the operator to transcribe with ease. He can also stop and start the record at any point desired, and if the signal is not sufficiently clear the first time, he can have it repeated over and over by pressing a key which shifts the carriage, in a way similar to the action of the back-spacer on a typewriter.
When the messages have been copied from the various cylinders, the cylinders are taken to an electrically driven cutting machine which leaves them with fresh surfaces, ready to be used again.
The Dictaphone has long been used for dictation in offices, taking the most complex words as easily as the simplest ones. In the radio field the adapted form of this machine has proved equally accurate. One advantage it has over the type of apparatus which records signals by an ink marker on a paper strip, is that the necessity of employing expert tape readers is obviated. Moreover, the ink-and-tape machine is good only for telegraphy; the Dictaphone or similar device is necessary when the complex sounds of the human voice, or of music, are to be recorded.