A Cable Laying Facility

The need for new and more complex submarine cable systems to handle a growing transoceanic communications business produced many new features in the design of cable and repeaters and auxiliary electronic equipment.1 ·- 3 It also made necessary new solutions to the problem of placing the cable system on the ocean floor. This task appeared formidable to the early telegraph cable engineers, and many failures preceded tlu; final development of a satisfactory mode of operation. In terms of modern systems their task was simple, since they were interested only in a single-conductor circuit that would remain a lowresistance path well insulated from the sea. Modern broadband cable systems present a large number of new problems. The cable is now a complex transmission line whose characteristics up to high frequencies must be predictable and stable after the laying process. Repeaters and equalizers requiring large rigid containers are now inserted in the cable at frequent intervals. Both cable and repeaters are expensive and must not be wasted by the lack of precise payout control. When development of a repeatered telephone system4 was initiated by the Bell System, it was recognized that the laying of such a system in deep water was a sizable problem. Consequently, effort was concentrated on a flexible repeater that could be handled like cable with only minor modifications to existing cable ships. At the same time it was realized that this restriction would unduly 1367