Aged Copper wire..

[smudger1956]

After having dug to a depth of 10 feet last year, French scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 200 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 150 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the French: in the weeks that followed, American archaeologists dug to a depth of 20 feet before finding traces of copper wire. Shortly afterwards, they published an article in the New York Times saying : "American archaeologists, having found traces of 250-year-old copper wire, have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network 50 years earlier than the French."

A few weeks later, ‘The British Archaeological Society of Northern England’ reported the following: "After digging down to a depth of 33 feet in the Skipton area of North Yorkshire in 2011, Charlie Hardcastle, a self-taught amateur archaeologist, reported that he had found absolutely nothing. Charlie has therefore concluded that 250 years ago, Britain had already gone wireless."


Makes you proud to be British.

 

[neptune]

Back in 1962,I was an apprentice telephone engineer. It was one of the coldest winters of the century, and the combination of low temperatures and high winds brought down telephone wires throughout the district. It was a case of all hands on deck to put the wires back up. It was so cold that if you touched the copper wire with your bare hands, they would freeze to your hands and pull the skin off. Old Bert, the gang foreman told me that when I got older , those wires would be a thing of the past. Instead, there would be a large aerial on the exchange roof, and an aerial on your house instead. I remember thinking he was mad . But his vision of the future was so near the truth...