Repeater Production for the North Atlantic Link

Production of submarine telephone cable repeaters, designed to have a minimum trouble-free life of twenty years, required many new and refined manufacturing procedures. Care in the selection and training of personnel, manufacturing environment, inspection, and testing, were of great importance in the successful attainment of the ultimate objective. Although quality of product has always been of major significance in Western Electric Company manufacture, building electronic equipment for use at the bottom of the ocean, where maintenance is impossible and replacement of apparatus extremely expensive, required unusual manufacturing methods. MANUFACTURING OBJECTIVE Late in 1952, the manufacture of flexible repeaters for the North Atlantic Link of the transatlantic submarine telephone cable system was allocated to the Kearny Works of Western Electric Company. In accordance with established practice in initiating radically new products and processes, production of these repeaters was assigned to the Engineer of Manufacture Organization rather than to regular manufacture in the telephone apparatus shops. The job -- to produce 122 thirty-six channel carrier repeaters and 19 equalizers capable of operating satisfactorily at pressures up to 6,800 pounds per square inch on the ocean floor, with minimum maintenance, for a period of at least twenty years. Initial delivery of repeaters was required for March, 1954, less than a year and a half after the project started. GENERAL PHILOSOPHY Quality has always been the prime consideration in producing apparatus and equipment for the Bell System.