[time-nuts] Antique precision timing device without electronics

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

--------
In message <20170317220437.4A4FF40605C at ip-64-139-1-69.sjc.megapath.net>, Hal Murray writes:
>
>eric at scace.org said:
>>    Frequencies around 15 Hz were common on early 20th century cables,
>> depending on the degree of success in compensating for the inherent
>> capacitance on a cable thousands of miles long surrounded by conductive
>> sea water.
>
>Is the sea water relevant?

Not in a coaxial cable, unless it gets into the cable.

Most telegraph cables where not coaxial and used the sea-water as return path.

>Does enough energy leak through the shield so that it matters?  How well does 
>coax work at low frequencies?

Coax is near perfect at low frequencies, but the lengths of these
cables introduced geophysics as a number of sources of noise.

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.