Great War Telephone Equipment 1914-1918:

The Power Buzzer and Amplifier Trench Set

 

 

 

 

 

Great War Power Buzzer and Amplifier

Probably the most striking success of all the alternative methods of communication in 1917 fell to the previously despised power buzzer and amplifier. Signals were transmitted through the earth by means of buzzers and were picked up on an ordinary telephone receiver connected to widely seperated earths. With the early buzzers, the overhearing problem was so acute at the time that all means of signalling which frankly depended upon overhearing for their success could not be expected to find favour. It was , perhaps,  natural that the french should take a prominent part in the development of this type of signalling. Their engineers were the inventors of the original valve listening set. Their idea of forward signals differed considerably from the British, their system being directed much more toward getting back information from the front line, and less toward the conveyance forward of orders and instructions. One-way working from front to rear, therefore, presented many more attractions to the french Signal Service than to the British.

It was from the French, also, that the next step in the development of earth induction telegraphy came. This was the introduction to the British Army of the French "Parleur," which was the earlier equivalent of the British power buzzer. The possibilities of this large buzzer, worked by accumulators and with short earth leads, 100 to 150 yards in length, was at once seen and in 1916 it was generally adopted throughout our own Army. A proportion of the available listening sets were set aside to receive the messages sent by this means from selected forward spots and in the battles on the Somme and the Ancre these instruments gave valuable service.They were on the whole unfavourably reported upon, however, for deveral reasons. The buzzers themselves were fairly robust instruments, but the accumulators needed a certain amount of care and had to be carried in an upright position. The signaller stumbling along in the dusk across shell-pitted, wire-infested country, frequently arrived at his destination with his power buzzer in order, but with accumulators quite dry, having distributed the acid between his clothes, his other equipment, and the ground over which he had passed.

The difficulty of one-way working was overcome to some extent by the invention of special amplifier sets and their provision in large quantities. The opening  of the 1917 campaigns thus found the earth induction set in a much stronger position than it had held the previous year. This was soon reflected in the reports of signal officers and of regimental officers, too. Again and again, it was recorded that when all other communication had gone, poere buzzer and amplifier sets had bridged the gap until better conditions returned. Most of the occasions were for a few hours only and the number of messages handled was of course relatively small. At Bullercourt, however, in May 1917, during the attacks on the Hindenberg line, the classical instance occurred which illustrated at its best the value of this means of signalling under favourable circumstances. For several days, the shelling had been so intense that no groung or air communication was possible between the Australians in the Hidenberg line east of Bullercourt and their supports. Wireless aerials would not stand up; lines were blasted off the face of the earth, runners left the trenches only to be blown to pieces, the supply of pigeons could not be maintained. Deep down in the tunnels and caverns beneath the line, however, were installed two power buzzers and amplifiers. With their bases securely hidden in the tunnels and with the sets themselves under many feet of headcover, they remained inviolate. For several days after the line was occupied these sets kept up constant communication with other sets further to the rear, and gave warning of several counter-attacks which were successfully repulsed.

After this and other less dramatic but useful successes, the power buzzer achieved some degree of popularity and was used to a great extent as part of the normal intercommunication system in position warfare. In 1918 it was further improved by the issue of a combined set which made the two-way station more compact and portable.

Source: The Signal Service (France) by R.E. Priestly, M.C. , B.A. (Late Major, R.E.) Chatham: W. & J. Mackay & Co., Limited.     1921

Link to  excellent Fullerphone website: http://home.hccnet.nl/l.meulstee/fullerphone/fullerphone.html

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