This transcript was submitted courtesy of Dr. Richard Ling, whose grandfather was Paul K. Seyler of Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company, part of the Bell System. Mr. Seyler was lead engineer for this pioneering effort, a first in America, possibly in the world.

Although radio-telephony was not new in 1946, this represents perhaps the first time in the world that individual customers had radio-telephones installed at their premises. The far flung ranches the interview describes were so remote that running a telephone line to each of them would have been prohibitively expensive. A radio was far cheaper than a line made up of dozens of miles of copper wire, scores of utility poles, and the labor needed to build and then maintain it.

To make the equipment simple and to conserve frequencies each subscriber shared the same wireless link, thus creating a wireless party line. It is an entertaining and informative interview and I thank Richard for submitting it.