Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2016 June 1

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June 1

I have a follow up question to Amazon Gift Cards

What stores are they sold in Canada? I don't have a credit card so I can't buy it online. And I'm talking about cards that buy the you put money on to use on the amazon website and you can give to a friend for a birthday. 2001:569:766D:AB00:2130:A4F1:5CD9:5ABA (talk) 00:12, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Amazon.ca says Loblaws, T&T Supermarket, Sobeys and Safeway, but that's for amazon.ca cards. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:33, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Flight path vs. Great circle

A friend is flying from Boston to Tel Aviv. The flight path is not anywhere near the great circle path that I expected. I didn't expect them to follow a great circle path exactly but this is wildly different. Why? Dismas|^(talk) 02:28, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

My guess is to keep the plane within a certain flying time of landing places, which cannot be achieved on the great circle route; and a further guess is that greater operational restrictions are placed on twin-engine planes such as the one involved here, than four-engined planes. --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:33, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Final guess for the night is that a close reading of ETOPS or links therefrom, will complete the picture. --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:38, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Wrong. On the same FlightAware page already linked, click on an earlier date such as May 24 and you'll see that the route is much further south, not deviating to go near Greenland and Iceland. This deviation has to have been for weather reasons, and specifically to pick up that nice 100 mph tailwind over southern Greenland. (Note, this link only gives current and near-future information, so it answers the question right now but will not be a persistent reference for it.) See jet stream. --69.159.60.83 (talk) 06:11, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Concorde

Were there any women Concorde pilots? 2601:646:A180:C88C:35BA:E6B7:D803:A2EA (talk) 06:40, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Try searching for "women Concorde pilots" and see. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:58, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Two, apparently - one British and one French, Béatrice Vialle and Barbara Harmer 86.191.126.192 (talk) 11:40, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! 2601:646:A180:C88C:F88D:DE34:7772:8E5B (talk) 21:13, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Barbara Harmer's article adds another: "Jacqueline Auriol was the first woman to fly Concorde as a test pilot.". Auriol's article doesn't mention it, and the link is dormant if not dead. Her French WP biography asserts that she was the first female test pilot in France, and that she tested the Concorde. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 15:50, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

References

Medical Records Question

Basically, what I am curious about is this: Is there some kind of cumulative record for people who live in the United States of America which lists *all* of the surgeries that these people got throughout their *entire lifetime*? Completely serious question, for the record. Futurist110 (talk) 19:58, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

In my experience, medical records are kept by the local agencies (doctors, hospitals, etc.) and you have to go through some hoops to get them transferred when you move somewhere. Unless that's all just a ruse and the government has all our medical history stashed somewhere. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:31, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing this information, Bugs! :) Futurist110 (talk) 05:42, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

For the record, @Futurist110:, are most of your questions completely unserious? μηδείς (talk) 21:09, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

No; rather, they are completely serious. Futurist110 (talk) 22:58, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Only if the patient has made an effort to keep all their medical records together. This can be a hassle, as I know from personal experience (I live in the U.S.). Or, I guess, if the patient has only ever gone to one medical provider for all their care. There's no "centralized" medical records depository. Individual practices keep their own records. This can be problematic, since people often don't have a comprehensive medical history. Here's the California Medical Board's page about medical records. --71.110.8.102 (talk) 21:40, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing this information! :) Futurist110 (talk) 22:59, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

The answer is basically no. It's possible to get a Continuity of Care Document which can be imported into your new provider's medical records software. Your old provider basically sends the CCD to your new provider and they import the document. See also Health information exchange which facilitates getting your records to various agencies in an area. Dismas|^(talk) 23:10, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing this information with us, Dismas! Futurist110 (talk) 01:35, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate the OP's question was about the US, but I am sure that here in the UK, GP records certainly transffered over with the patient. There was a scheme at one point to computerise this, but it ended up in a fiasco IIRC Sfan00 IMG (talk) 20:38, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

According to Seinfeld, doctors share information with each other about 'difficult patients'. Justin15w (talk) 16:06, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

There have been some proposals to create a national clearinghouse for medical records in the US, but so far privacy concerns seem to trump sharing of medical info, such as in the highly restrictive Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), which, despite the name, limits portability in order to protect privacy. Cost would also be a factor (although a single national system might well be cheaper in the long run, there would be significant start-up costs). StuRat (talk) 16:23, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Cryptic telegram code

Apparently, here is the telegram announcing the birth of Prince Charles, two years before my parents were born.

Look at the original telegram at the upper left. It's all written in some sort of incomprehensible cryptic code. What sort of code is this? How did people manage to decrypt it? And could there be any sort of other explanation for its use other than to save valuable message space? JIP | Talk 21:46, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

It looks like a substitution cipher. Note the part of that article that states "Five letter groups are traditional, dating from when messages used to be transmitted by telegraph". You decrypt it by knowing the cipher and applying it. The purpose is not to save space, but to keep people other than the intended recipient from reading the message. This is a diplomatic communication to the Governor-General of New Zealand; it's likely that all such messages were encrypted as a matter of routine. Encryption has been used for military and diplomatic communications for thousands of years. Governments understandably don't want just anyone reading high-level communications. --71.110.8.102 (talk) 21:54, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It could be any code, pre-agreed between the Commonwealth Office (as it was, now the FCO), and the High Commission to NZ. It's likely to be a one-time pad, shipped by diplomatic bag. Although the repeated "ABABY" and "ABOAD" is interesting. Telegrams were nearly always sent in blocks of 5 letters, as are most cyphers when done by hand. LongHairedFop (talk) 22:01, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

As for why it was used, there isn't an obvious answer, other than the presumed tradition that important diplomatic messages were to be sent by code. This was sent at 2305 (11:05 pm) and the prince's birth was announced to the public at 10:20 pm, so the Governor General likely already knew of this from media sources. John M Baker (talk) 22:12, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

You can see in the middle image on the left that each group of 5 letters stands for a word, phrase, or punctuation mark: HERKM is "I am to", ABOAD is a comma, etc. The letter groups were probably randomly assigned and had to be looked up in a codebook on either end. -- BenRG (talk) 00:16, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

ABABY may mean 'message begins' and 'message ends'. This message reminded me of the curious cypher found in the belongings of the unidentified dead man at Taman Shud Case, since ABAB occurs in it also. Akld guy (talk) 00:57, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Looks like an old commercial code to me. I don't think there's any secrecy purpose here. This just looks like a standard commercial code being used to compress a telegram, which was really common in those days. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 01:24, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

• Okay, we've now had three completely incompatible guesses: it's a substitution cipher, it's a one-time pad cipher, it's a commercial code. May I point out that the idea here is that we provide references which actually answer the question? --69.159.60.83 (talk) 04:24, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
  • This looks like the basic idea. Of course, you have to have the "key", i.e. the right grid. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:47, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

We can rule out the substitution cipher (including BB's suggestion). The translation sheet shows that each five-letter group is translated to a date, a word, a phrase or a character. As our article explains, decrypting substitution ciphers exchange single letters (or groups of letters) for other letters, not words. A one-time pad is a type of substitution cipher, which rules that out too. I just finished reading The Victorian Internet and it describes the use of code books, and how they were used both to save money by compressing long messages and for security reasons. Without access to the code book you can't tell if it's a commercial code or a code specific to the British government. Sjö (talk) 05:22, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Exactly! So the question is which code would have been used for a telegram from this specific sender to this specific recipient, and guessing won't provide an answer. --69.159.60.83 (talk) 10:55, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Searching "codebook" yields lots of images, some of which are excerpts from codebooks with five-letter code words. If you have the time to look trough them you might find the codes and plaintext in the message above. That would tell you what codebook was used, but I think that the chance that you can find it is very low. Sjö (talk) 14:02, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

We can quickly rule out any "diplomatic cipher" as it was sent by normal NZPO cablegram with "Buckingham Palace" and "Private Secretary" etc. in plaintext. It could not be a "secret code" in use regularly as such codes rarely remain secret. A great many codebooks existed for personal use (List of Code Books covers some of the territory). And NZ would not necessarily have had any media reports any faster than this cable arrived. Looks from here to be a routine message, and the code was a normal economy measure at the time (England was still under rationing, currency controls, etc.) Collect (talk) 14:02, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Rationing? That can't be right, the original message is 168 characters and the ciphered one is 150 characters, the economy cannot possibly be worth the pain of encryption and decryption, for which you need to pay people who are doing it, and while they are doing that, they are not working in real productive work like a factory or a field. The cipher must be simply standard procedure to avoid leaks that could happen if you do not trust the operators on each side to keep a secret. --Lgriot (talk) 17:35, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Couple of points: First, compression via code was a matter of routine in those days, and was probably done without even thinking by a lower-level employee and not the person who wrote the message. Second, this isn't a very compressible message when you consider how most codes were used and the length of the message: They were used essentially to shorthand frequently repeated words and phrases. In this case, there's not much that should be shorthanded. Third, telegrams were charged by the word, not by the symbol (with certain constraints on what a "word" was). That said, if you consider this as a telegram charged by the word, I don't think there's any savings whatsoever. But that just goes back to my first point: It was probably encoded as a matter of routine. That said, there is an advantage to using broken (or even public) codes for all sorts of business with manual telegraphy: The telegraph operator would have to go through all the trouble of retaining a copy of this word salad—and all the other word salads he or she routinely transmitted on a daily basis—take it home and decode it, and then relay the message to someone who gives a damn. Just processing context-free symbols that you can't automatically read like you could normal language means you've got to make a conscious effort to actually read it. While the birth of Charles was certainly big news, I would argue that a telegraph or telex operator wouldn't even notice this one short message during a day's work, while in plaintext he or she would surely have trouble keeping it a secret. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 20:10, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

The cablegram as shown has 25 "chargeable words" encoded. Numerals each count as a separate word if sent directly, so the number of chargeable words in the finished copy based on the 25 codes used is 41. A significant savings (likely over $5 then - or about $75 in 2016 dollars ). Collect (talk) 21:37, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Where on earth did you get those dollar amounts, considering that New Zealand used pounds, shillings and pence until July 1967? Akld guy (talk) 09:24, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

I was using US to England rates from an old list - it is difficult to find the England-NZ precise rate in 1948, but since I am in the US, I rather thought similar rates would apply. Collect (talk) 20:47, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

That fee seems high. I know from watching 1930s movies that one British pound Sterling was equivalent to US$5. At least two movies mention that as the conversion rate. It may have changed somewhat post-war. Akld guy (talk) 22:30, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

If the goal was to save money, though, it's strange that they didn't combine the words in pairs (KZEAXABABY HERKMHTNOG ...) to cut the price in half again, since that was how the five-letter codes were designed to be used (there was a 10-letter-per-word limit). I guess it's possible that the limit was lower in New Zealand. -- BenRG (talk) 21:50, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm not going to check it now, but I believe it says somewhere in The Victorian Internet that a 5-letter limit on each block was imposed on codes, or maybe it was non-pronounceable codes. The book definitely says that rules like this varied over time as people tried to design codes to minimize the cost of telegrams under whatever rules were then current. --69.159.60.83 (talk) 00:32, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm certain this is the case. In 1965, an ITU-published history book noted "The current Telegraph Regulations allow only artificial words up to five letters; telegrams can also now be sent in which real words are used but having a meaning different from their normal content in plain language." From Semaphore to Satellite. Geneva: International Telecommunications Union. 1965. p. 90. hdl:11.1004/020.1000/3.25.57.en.100. It's worth reading the entire section on priority, rates, and codes by the way. Very interesting. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 20:33, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Note the similarity in the code between Princess and Prince. I do wonder, given the "ABABY" (a baby, geddit?) code designation and the variable length of numbers of letters and words corresponding to the code batches, if this was a one-time code to be used in ABABY circumstances, whereby they provided a fairly small number of likely phrases in addition to or in place of usual cypher. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:44, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

I think "prince" and "princess" have similar codes just because the code words are in the same lexicographical order as the phrases they stand for (which has the advantage that you can encode and decode with the same ordered list, but makes the code significantly easier to break, if it was meant to be secret). If "prince" and "princess" were adjacent in the codebook, and the distance between NALCFNALGF and NALNK was typical of the distance between adjacent code words, then there would be ~40,00060,000 entries in the book (obviously a very rough and unreliable estimate). -- BenRG (talk) 19:07, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

This was a general problem with codes during the days of the manual telegraph, and of course a general consequence of compression: Fatal errors in transmission become far more common. Error control in those days became a matter of having to retransmit, which is why the telegraph companies and regulators worked to curtail abuses of codes, since long strings of gibberish, especially with variable length codewords, made error detection so much harder. More retransmits were required (drastically ramping up the cost per-telegraph to transmit messages), and moreover, there's certainly the possibility that an uncaught error could have catastrophic consequences for the recipient (and potentially liability for the telegraph company). —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 20:45, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

One might note that the concept of using the equivalent of the modern "checksum" system would make the code somewhat self-correcting. 26^5 is about 12 million. Lots of room there to make single character errors disappear. Collect (talk) 20:51, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

As an interesting aside, it looks like there was a single character error in this telegram. See the printed telegram, line 3, 4th word is "NALCF". On the top page to the right, the word in this position is underlined, and written "NALGF". I can't tell which was the error, but it goes to show you that these things happened and evidently were correctable. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 20:54, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

The dollar/sterling rate was never 5.00. At independence (or whenever the dollar was introduced) one cent was made equal to a halfpenny, making the rate 4.80. Later it moved to five shillings (almost), actually 4.03. I believe that was the rate in the thirties, but successive devaluations brought it down to 2.80, after which the fixed exchange rate was discontinued. 151.224.167.104 (talk) 10:32, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

At any rate, the cost per word in 1948 is something that's eluding me. I know in 1920 a standard telegram from England to NZ cost 2/8 (or 2/6 if you used Marconi) per word. Post Office Guide. General Post Office. July 1920. p. 755. Let's assume those per-word rates stayed fixed into 1948 (unlikely but let's start from there): If this is 25 chargeable words, then the cost to send this would have cost around £5 at the 1920 rate. Based on the word count field in File:WatsonLloydGeorgeTelegram.jpg, however, I suspect the sender and recipient names are chargeable as well (though the source and destination offices are not), which would give us 33 chargeable words (note the 33 in the addressing block). At 33 chargeable words, the cost of this telegram in 1920 would have been £6.7s.4d. Unfortunately I can't find a digitized Post Office Guide closer to the 1948 date, though I know they're evidently held by The British Postal Museum and Archive. I wonder what the 14 means, though. And the 11.5 at the top of the page on the right. I am pretty sure, though, that the 2305 refers to the time the telegram was handed in at London (or possibly time transmitted if there was delay introduced by relaying), given the "time received" penciled in is 12:20 pm, and the typed copy says it was received on the 15th, the day after Charles' birth. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 18:20, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

There is no discrepancy with the date, so there was no delay. Charles was born on the 14th and the message is timed 2305 on that day, UK time. New Zealand Standard Time is (and was) 12 hours ahead of UK time. So this message was received at 11:05 a.m. (probably the '11.5') on the 15th, NZST, and is so time stamped. Akld guy (talk) 22:16, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, no, my point about delay is not the Nov 14 to Nov 15, but the 2305 time in the address line, and the "Rec'd" line below the address box, where "12.20 p" is penciled in (presumably referring to the NZST time of receipt). There's a 1h15m difference there. That's why I suspect the 2305 is the time it was handed in at the telegraph office in London. The telegram doesn't seem to have been sent high priority (ETAT means a non-priority government telegram, which would be prioritized below all classes of priority telegram, and those below any telegrams involving imminent danger to life or property, but above other non-priority telegrams), so it's possible telegrams involving other business pushed this one back in the queue an hour. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 00:00, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Sorry to press a point, but you did say that it was received on the 15th, "the day after Charles' birth." No, it wasn't the day after. The message, sent at 23:05 on the 14th UK time, was received the same UK day. It's just that New Zealand by then was at 11:05 on the 15th. You cannot claim a delay when an event happens in one time zone and time zone change results in a different day for the same event. To New Zealanders of the time, the day after Charles' birth would have been the 16th. Akld guy (talk) 02:22, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Facepalm That's not the point I was making. The address box contains "2305". Underneath the address box is the notation "Rec'd by", and in pencil, "12.20 p". The 2305 suggests that the message was "handled" by London at 2305, which was 1105 NZST. The New Zealand station noted the message received, not at 1105 but at 1220, one hour and 15 minutes later. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 02:52, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

(EC) Isn't the claim that it was received at 12.20 pm NZST edit: presumably on the 15th, which if is correct (edit: confirmed that the telegram does say what Mendaliv suggest) and you're correct and it was +12 at the time(edit: our article suggests you are), would mean it was received on 1948.11.15 0020 in the UK, the day after Charles' birth and the telegraphtelegram being prepared (edit: at 2305). In NZ, it was received on the same day as Charles' birth since the time zone difference mention all 3 times were on the same day (edit: the 15th) but there's no suggestion Mendaliv was referring to things from a NZ POV. Nil Einne (talk) 02:56, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Mendaliv plainly said that the message was received on the 15th, "the day after Charles' birth.", which he/she applied irrespective of whether the time received was 11:05 or 12:20 NZST. I don't like how he/she is trying to wriggle out of that faux pas and attempting to shift the misunderstanding onto me. Now, as to Mendaliv's conclusion that the time received was 12:20, indicating a delay of more than an hour: that 'delay' may have been the time taken to decode the message and type it up into a presentable form for dispatch to the governor general. It may even be the time it was dispatched. Mendaliv has nothing on which to base the 12:20 for the time of the message's arrival and therefore nothing on which to base a delay of an hour or more in its transmission. Teleprinter communications was near instantaneous in 1948. Akld guy (talk) 06:30, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Okay, let's just be straightforward here. I'm directing you to drop the stick and walk away. Your comments here demonstrate a sort of comical one-upsmanship which is at odds with the purpose of the RD. We aren't here for you to sit idly by until someone says something you can (mis)read as incorrect and then repetitively call that person out on it. Oh, heaven forbid! Let's forget the fact that it took you something like three posts of my pointing out the 12:20 pm notation for you to even notice it, and even then you dismiss it. The fact that the message was received at 12:20 pm means that it was actually received at 11:05 am? Think about that for a second. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 00:17, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

The Treasury of Knowledge, Samuel Maunder, London 1880 notes:

Eagle (gold) = about 1 pound 1s 10 3/4d

Dollar (silver) do 4s 3 1/2d

Cent (copper) do 1/2d

Whitaker's Almanac noted that the 1939 Average Rate to pound (approx) was 4.485. Pears Cyclopaedia 1965 - 1966 gives parity as 2.80. The Daily Mail Year Book 1970 gives the Average Equivalent to one pound sterling at June 1969 as 2.40 and Smaller Units approximate 1d = 1c. Whitaker gives the Middle Rate on 30 September 1976 as 1.6610. The Royal Mail International Business Travel Guide 1994/95 (London, 1993) gives the following October rates:

1990 - 1.95

1991 - 1.74

1992 - 1.59

The rate in September 1993 was 1.53.

The Europa World Year Book 1993 (London, 1993) gives the Sterling Equivalent (31 December 1992) as 1.514. 151.224.132.45 (talk) 13:39, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Akld guy: No idea where you read that. I've read the comment several times, and I see no indication Mendaliv meant the 15th in NZ. As already stated, they could have and probably did mean the 15th in the UK. And as already said, if the message was received 12:20 in NZ this would indeed have been the 15th i.e. the next day in the UK. This seems to have already been explained well by both me and Mendaliv. But if you still can't understand, I suggest your forget about Charles and get a book or whatever works for you and just imagine a hypothetical scenario for some other case with the similar figures until you get it. E.g. Why a message about something that occured before 1100 in a place with a +11 time difference from the originating location, but not received until 1118 in the same place with that +11 time difference, would mean that the message was received the next day in the place of origin. If removing yourself from this specific case with the apparent emotive element to you to be right still doesn't work, well sorry but I don't know what else to suggest. Maybe wait a year or two and try again. As to whether the 12:20 time was when it was received, well I consider this besides the point of my comment, other than to say that from the info available and definitely wasn't something you were addressing initially. P.S. Could you consider renaming yourself? It's a bit embarassing for me as an Aucklander that you're advertising Auckland in such a poor way. 07:24, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

FWIW - continental usage does not use the zero in "11:05" writing it as "11.5". For verification, look at any railway guide. The exchange rate in 1948 was not the same as in 1990, so those figures do not help us. In 1948, 1 pound sterling was $4.03 US. I never said, nor did anyone here, that $5 was the "exchange rate" at all. Addresses, as far as I can tell, were not "chargeable words". The 16 extra words used in plaintext would have come to (@2/6 per word per post above, the US to UK rate in 1948 was somewhat less - the 16 words being charged about $5 US using that rate) abut 2 pounds, or about $8 US. I underestimated the savings if that rate were still in effect. Cablegrams travel at the speed of light, but the decoding does not occur at the speed of light <g>. A cablegram sent at 23.5 GMT would have arrived at NZ at 11.5 local time precisely. The 12.20 was pretty certainly the time of the printed transcribed cablegram. The transcription was fairly certainly done at Government House as a routine matter, as the stationery indicates that telegrams were routinely handled in that manner. The material was neither sent as confidential, nor considered to be in any way confidential, as no markings that it was anything more than routine communication are found. Could the person have transcribed it in under an hour? Likely yes, but there was no undue delay in the notification of a non-surprise event. Collect (talk) 12:01, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

As a note, which might aid comparisons of rates, UK to US telegram charges in 1920 varied by destination: Much of the eastern seaboard could be as little as 8d per word (via Marconi; all Marconi rates were on the order of 4d cheaper per word compared to all the other services), whereas Alaska and Hawaii (then the Sandwich Islands) could be as much as 3/2 per word. Most of the Continental US hovered between 1/- and 1/6 per word, with some outliers. I am guessing the real price decreased by 1948 as more cables were laid and competition with the telephone heated up, but I have no idea what 28 years of inflation, including the depression and war, would make the 1948 price of this telegram look like. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 17:36, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Is it really true that a cablegram sent from the UK to New Zealand in 1948 would arrive (essentially) instantly? Were relays no longer needed for that distance in 1948? John M Baker (talk) 17:37, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

That is a good question. I seriously doubt there was a permanent direct circuit from the UK to NZ for commercial use all things considered. If it were a radiogram, that'd be a different matter, of course. Even if relays weren't used, they would've had to assemble a circuit via the branch offices, much like for a telephone call. That's why I suspect 2305 is the time it was prepared transcribed in the UK from the customer's form and prepared for transmission. I really doubt that it's the actual time of transmission if only because of how very important it can be for the telegraph office, for liability purposes, to ensure the customer knows exactly when the telegram was submitted. Sort of like how when you file your taxes, you want to get it in the mailbox at the right time—it's not getting postmarked as soon as it gets in the box; it might not even get picked up until the next morning, but it'll get postmarked on the assumption that it was put in the day before. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 17:45, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

This is OR, but a telecommunications history book that I read a few years ago in the library said that radio-telephone services were inaugurated between the US and the UK in 1927, and by 1949 there were 70 radio-telephone circuits for five continents. The book was authoritative and I think was published by the ITU. I still have the written notes that I made at the time. I would be pretty sure that Australia was one of those 5 continents, since the UK would need to have kept in touch with the remotest parts of its empire. A teletype circuit was probably dedicated to one channel, or if not, the channel was at least switched to teletype equipment when a message needed to be sent and the circuit was not booked for a speech call. There's a very strong probability that when NZ was the destination, the UK-Australia circuit would be patched at say, Sydney, to an Australia-NZ radio link. If so, the circuit would have been direct, UK-NZ. I'm aware of what was technically feasible in 1948, and speak as a former telephone systems technician (commenced January 1968) and progressed in the mid 70s to Frequency Division Multiplex and digital systems on which telegraph systems of 1955 vintage and later were carried. I had much experience in carrying out distortion tests on those old telegraph systems, which were quite sophisticated. This is not meant to be a definitive answer as to whether there was or was not a direct UK-NZ link in 1948, but rather to give some idea of the technology that was available at that time. Akld guy (talk) 20:18, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

FWIW, NZ had direct cable service to Australia across the Tasman Sea as early as February 1876. [1]. By 1917, the new cable went to the North Island, connecting directly with Wellington where this cablegram appears to have ended up. Collect (talk) 22:03, 6 June 2016 (UTC)