OK, This week Uncle Mugs is going to tell all you future purveyors of American media business about our country’s FIRST Cable News Network. It all started back around 1850 and was conceived, constructed and seen to it’s fruition by Cyrus Field in 1858 when he ran an under seas cable from Ireland to Newfoundland... This proved to be a great time saver ( time is money ) as a 28 day round trip by wooden ship could see many business decisions gone to change. The next effort was to lay a cable from France to the USA… This was accomplished by the Steam Ship ‘Great Eastern’ from Brest France to St. Pierre, Michelon Island ( off Newfoundland ) thence to the Massachusetts shores across Rouse’s Hummock just south of Brant Rock to the Duxbury Cable Station. It was so successful even with myriad problems and heartaches that the second attempt was another cable, again from Brest France direct this time to Orleans on Cape Cod.
The first messages measured in today’s money went for the equivalent of around $500… The whole project was a marvel of human engineering and you can visit the cable station today in Orleans at the original building and see the equipment as used then which is still in working order… Ten local business men purchased the entire cable set-up from the French Government after the cable closed on November 26th. 1959…
If the operator on duty miss interpreted a message, he was docked a DAYs pay... Information was MONEY...
When the Portland Gale Storm of 1898 blew all land line telegraph operations away in this area, the news of the 'Portland' sinking was relayed via the under seas cable to Paris then back to New York via another cable...
Here is a picture of the worlds first ink jet ( top strip ) with the feeble markings as received, later to be converted to ‘TD’ tape… See the correlation between the dots and dashes on each medium… Because of cable delay and ‘pulse stretching’ the maximum speed per message was about 10 words per minute.. Just a few baud… connected 2 continents...
