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History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications
from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network

SCL Repeater and Cable Production

Introduction: Pete Bosworth, whose father worked at the Submarine Cables Ltd factory at Erith for many years, sends this album of photographs showing production of cables and repeaters there.

--Bill Burns

The album is titled on the cover:

Cable & Repeater Divisions
Submarine Cables Limited

And on the inside title page:

Submerged Repeaters and Co-Axial
Cable for Trans-Oceanic Telephone Service

Views of Manufacturing
Operations at
Submarine Cables Limited
Ocean Works, Erith, Kent
and
Greenwich, London, S.E. 10

1. Manufacture of electrical components under clean and rigorously controlled conditions.

2. View of assembly area for submerged repeaters.

3. Inspection of an end casting for a repeater internal unit.

4. Inspection of a repeater amplifier chassis.

5. Inspection of a repeater casing.

6. Inspection of plates for silvered mica capacitors.

7. Assembly of silvered mica capacitors.

8. Coil winding.

9. General view of assembly and testing of repeater units.

10. Mounting of polystyrene capacitors.

11. Assembly operations on a supervisory unit.

12. An early stage of wiring on an amplifier.

13. Transmission testing of a filter unit.

14. Transmission testing of an amplifier unit.

15. Assembling individual repeater units.

16. Internal unit of a repeater before insertion and sealing into a brass tube.

17. The repeater in its pressure resisting casing is sealed by high frequency brazing.

18. Pressure testing of housed repeaters at 5 tons per square inch.

19. Completed repeater after housing.

20. Equipment for the confidence testing of repeaters for a three month period.

21. Confidence testing of repeaters at sea bottom temperatures.

22. General view of two of the core extruders.

23. View of coiling down in containers accommodating 26 n.m. of core.

24. Part of core extrusion control room.

25. Examined core coiled in tanks for electrical tests.

26. Application of aluminium tapes to form outer conductor.

27. View of an oversheathing extruder.

28. View of tanks each storing 200 n.m. of completed cable.

Last revised: 9 October, 2016

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The Atlantic Cable website is non-commercial, and its mission is to make available on line as much information as possible.

You can help - if you have cable material, old or new, please contact me. Cable samples, instruments, documents, brochures, souvenir books, photographs, family stories, all are valuable to researchers and historians.

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—Bill Burns, publisher and webmaster: Atlantic-Cable.com