My Story with the Medium (3)

(10) Initial acquaintance with telephone and telegraph

When I was not in elementary school, I knew that the telephone could talk, and later I learned that the telegraph could not use wires, and I felt that it was the first thing in the world.

There is a telephone pole in the northwest of the southwest workshop of Lin, on which there are four horizontal angle irons, like the word "Feng" but one more horizontal, each corner iron has more than a dozen porcelain beards, and the porcelain beard is fixed with steel wires attached to another pole, and it is said that it is a telephone line. At that time, the telephone was a pair of telephone lines from the computer room to the user, and there were as many as forty or fifty lines on a telephone pole, densely arranged in parallel. The father of a classmate became a "big" cadre, and two telephone lines went to the small telephone poles in his house, and then used black soft wires to penetrate his house. The telephone is dark, next to two extra-large dry batteries, and there is a bell similar to the bicycle bell on the phone, and the ringtone is very harsh. As soon as there is a ringtone at night, several neighbors can hear it. When we went to his yard to play, his son gave us a performance of a phone call, shaking the handle of the phone very hard, shaking it quickly a few times, and then loudly "crooked, crooked, crooked", after the operator connected, he said loudly: "You pick me up so-and-so unit", that scene is really like the battlefield officer in the movie calling.

The first time I called was in 1967, when I asked Chairman Liu of the Miners' Union for a ticket. At that time, I didn't know how to call the other party, it was the janitor on duty to help me call through, and I couldn't tell which end was the microphone and the earpiece, and the attendant gave me a demonstration.

The home telephone is a rarity and a symbol of power, and the post and telegraph offices in various places have telephone and telegraph services for civilian use. Telephone is divided into the city telephone and long-distance telephone, ordinary people use very little, one is the need to call both sides need to go to a fixed place to call, very troublesome, the other is the call fee is very high, unless there is something important. In early 1988, I made a long-distance phone call to my wife's cousin Li Wanyu at the Linxi Post and Telecommunications Bureau, and he worked in the Fengrun County Garden Bureau, which although it belonged to the Tangshan area, belonged to outside the urban area and was charged according to long distances. He was not in the office after dialing, and the staff went to him. I waited anxiously at this end, because every minute and second consumed the money in my pocket, and it was the mother-in-law who took care of her friend's business, helping people to fight lawsuits. After waiting for ten minutes, the call lasted only three or four minutes, and it cost more than five yuan, and my salary at that time was about sixty or seventy yuan.

Kailuan Mining Bureau (later Kailuan Group Company) due to the large scale of the enterprise, opened an enterprise internal telephone, called mining electricity, intercom free, each mine and large factory have a special telephone room as a system branch, responsible for the district's telephone transfer, installation, maintenance and so on. High-ranking leaders or special departments may open electricity in the city. With the development of science and technology, the terminal capacity of the computer room has been greatly improved, and the original internal telephone of the enterprise has been extended to residential users. I installed the State Grid telephone in 1996, and in 2001 I replaced it with mining electricity, and the internal calls of the enterprise are free, and the external calls are billed separately.

Telegraph was a relatively common form of communication used by ordinary people in the early days except letters, mainly for dealing with urgent matters. Telegram is divided into ordinary and urgent two kinds, urgent telegram can generally be received on the same day or the next day, the tariff standard is not the same, the telegram is charged according to the number of words. In order to save money, the telegram is omitted to the extreme. One year, a relative wanted to come to my house, and sent a telegram two days in advance: "When I arrive in Tangshan on a certain day, please pick up the station and reply to the letter." My mother took me to reply to the telegram with only two words "received." There was also a telegram sent by the fourth uncle: "Return to Qingfeng as soon as the mother dies of illness", so that the telegram generally does not need to be replied to.

Although the telegram is fast, it is not popular among ordinary people, and the average family only sends a telegram when it encounters a big event, an emergency or a difficult matter, and when they hear that the telegram has come, they must first "cluck" in their hearts, worrying about what bad things will happen.

The last time I took a telegram was when my mother died in 1999 and I took it to my aunt in Tianjin, when the telephone was very popular, but I didn't know the phone number for many years. At that time, I wrote down the address, content, and address of my mother on paper, and asked my third brother-in-law, Guoliang, to shoot the telegram. In order to save money for the sender, the staff of the post office asked the third brother-in-law whether the other party knew the address of the sender. The third brother-in-law said that relatives should know, and the staff did not send my mother's address. This was a pain for my aunt and cousin, who took the mailing address of a long time ago and drove around in a car. Because of the reconstruction after the earthquake, the original residence no longer existed, and the residents moved to new homes. After dark, I was helped by the police station to find my house.

Telegraph messages are concise exchange data in form, but in fact, they are also the embodiment of Chinese cultural characteristics, which can express the richest meaning with the fewest Chinese characters. Chinese characters are highly recognizable, and a meaningful amount of information can be received from the eye. It has relevance, shape and sound and understanding, image, intuitive and righteous. Eisensitivity makes Chinese characters the world's most informative characters per unit, and the amount of information contained in Chinese characters (words) is much higher than that of other pinyin characters. It is understood that the Chinese edition of the UN Charter is 21 pages, while the English version is 91 pages. The telegraph may gradually withdraw from the stage of history, but the simplicity and speed of the telegraph text is worth exploring and promoting.

(11) Military trumpets and slogans

In December 1972, I joined the army and changed the unit number three times in four years, saying that it was to prevent the enemy from knowing the whereabouts of the troops. Troops are groups that carry out combat tasks, so there are some special ways of exchanging information, as infantry, and more contact is the military trumpet and flag.

The military trumpet is the most widely used, not only the battlefield charge, emergency collection, concealment, retreat and other prescribed trumpets, even the daily getting up, eating, exercising, collecting exercises, assembling, turning off the lights, etc. are all released through the military trumpet, as well as the number spectrum of the exchange of information in various camps. The military trumpet is made of brass, there is no scale hole, adjusted by the mouth shape and breath size of the trumpeter, only two notes of "tick", and the most heard by ordinary people should be the charge trumpet in film and television works. It is said that when the enemy goes to war, it attaches great importance to the annihilation of commanders and trumpeters, and although the trumpeter is an ordinary soldier, he has the most direct command role in the actions of the army. Many army propaganda posters use the image of trumpeters to indicate brave forward, heroic and invincible. After the new recruits arrive in the army, understanding the trumpet score is a very important learning content, and there are about a dozen commonly used trumpet scores.

The banner is another simple and quick way of communication for the troops, suitable for two or more parties who are not too far away, and can use telescopes when they are a little farther away, which is one of the ways to exchange information handed down from ancient times. The more widely used railways, ports and maritime transportation. The army flag bearer transmits different communication content through the up-down, left-right, left-right movement, frequency, etc. of the red and green flags, the number of times, the speed, the frequency, etc. It is said that all armies are equipped with white flags in case of emergency, which is an international practice, but I have not seen it.

In 1974, I was transferred to the battalion headquarters as a staff member, responsible for the daily life services of the battalion commander and instructor, and also as a signalman. In addition to long-distance running, the usual training is also to carry the hand flag to practice the flag, and later added a signal gun. As a military auxiliary equipment, the signal gun is mainly used for signaling, lighting and observation in a small area of the battlefield at night, indicating military action or displaying the battlefield situation to help commanders and fighters make correct judgments. The structure of the flare gun is simpler than that of the pistol, the flare has four different colors, and the information released is specified by the color, quantity, and order of the flare, and is only used two or three times during the training period of the soldier.

Each battalion is also equipped with a "2W" machine, which is actually a telegraph machine, because its transmission power is only two watts, commonly known as "2W". It works in the same way as the telegraph used by the Post and Telecommunications Office. The main unit is shoulder-to-shoulder, and the transmission and reception frequencies should be set. The host is connected to a signal generator, the generator is like a children's rocker, there is a spring in the middle, and one end is a handheld handle, which can emit a "beep and click" sound, and the sound is long and short. Through the combination of the length of the sound, a 0-9 number is represented, and then a word is expressed through a set of numbers. In order to prevent being deciphered by the enemy, it is necessary to use a secret code, which is translated by a full-time translator. Cipher code is the use of special rules for the use of text expressed by each set of numbers, so it is also a profession to decipher internationally, through the study of the law of code, crack the content of the telegram. The machine in my battalion was used by Yang Liusi, and no one was allowed to touch the machine. Yang Liusi was the nephew of Yang Gensi, the hero of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, and was a small tailor in the battalion headquarters, responsible for sewing and repairing military uniforms every six months.

(xii) Unlucky phone calls

In the summer of 1975, my good friends Jin Li and Xiao Dong visited me in the army, and the barracks were more than eighty kilometers away from my house, and they came by bicycle. After they left, they were very worried, and suddenly remembered that there was a cadre at the level of the Linxi Mine in the seventeenth row of the East Workshop who had a telephone at home, and it was very close to my house. At nine o'clock in the evening, I estimated that they should be home, so I used the battalion phone to try it out. At that time, the telephone should be gradually connected section by section, first calling the switchboard of the regimental headquarters→ the switchboard of the division headquarters→ the tangshan city switchboard → the main machine of the Kailuan Mining Bureau→ the kailuan Linxi Mine switchboard → the user end. The first time I connected three paragraphs to hang up, the second time I connected four paragraphs to hang up, and when I looked at the watch, it was more than ten o'clock, and I gave up the phone. The next day, I wrote a letter.

Deputy Battalion Commander Luo is a native of Baoding, Hebei Province, and is a bit out of touch with Xiao Cai, the farm duty room. Xiao Cai thought that he was a person of the division organs, had a good relationship with the division chiefs, and commanded the subordinate units, and was arrogant and domineering. That day, Deputy Camp Luo had just sat down in the duty room and said that Xiao Cai, a person who was not a big official, had a big temper, because of the transfer of rice seeds, he yelled a few words, which made him angry. As I was talking, the phone rang, and I picked up the phone, which was Xiao Cai's voice: "Go and ask Commander Luo to answer the phone." I hurriedly covered the microphone and asked Deputy Battalion Commander Luo if he could answer, and he shook his head. I said to Xiao Cai: "Deputy Battalion Commander Luo is not convenient to answer the phone", "How inconvenient", "He is sick", "Oh, then forget it, tomorrow will be talked about". Although the matter had passed, Deputy Battalion Commander Luo's face was very ugly. The next day, the squad leader quietly said to me: "How do you reply to Xiao Cai like that, the chief hates saying that he is sick, they think it is unlucky." It was the first time I had heard such a statement, and I didn't go to my heart after the squad leader said it. At the end of the year, new recruits came to the troops, the service squad personnel were adjusted, and I was transferred to the Ninth Company to carry the fire scissors.

(To be continued)