THE ELECTRIC TELEPHONE 

I follow some pretty strange trails to find out the latest in technological developments. But to think that a taste for Golden Himalayan mushrooms could lead to putting voice transmissions through hydro power lines is stretching one's creduality. Here's how it happened...

A Recent fad in San Francisco has been a hungar for the species of mushrooms known as Himalayan Golden. No, it's not hallucinogenic.

But it does require some specific growing conditions. Like heat. Cheap heat. These thoughts, among others were in the mind of American entrepreneur and amateur geologist Gordon Ford when he noticed that the snow always melted first around a town called Sulphurdale, Utah. "The government said the heat was just coming from rotting vegetation, but I suspected that a magma belt was running close to the surface", says Ford. He then made the class of decision that separates the successful from the rest of the pack. He believed himself instead of the government. Today the place should be renamed "Delano" because that is the name of Ford's company that is "mushrooming" into numerous different divisions all connected to his discovery of this local geothermal energy.

What's that got to do with phone service and hydro lines, you ask? Well Sulphurdale is so far from civilization that, according to Rhonda Roehm, Ford's executive-in-charge-of-everything, costs for running phone lines to their plants ran up to half a million U.S. dollars. That made her unhappy.

But she found an answer. Working with Mountain Bell Telephone engineer Dennis Johnson they used existing power lines to "ride" phone conversations on top of the electrical power lines that feed the area. A deal was worked out with Utah Power & Light to pay for this "piggyback" arrangement and Rhonda had her phone connections to the big cities. Now she is happy.

Synergistic possibilities like this one are possible in many fields and in many cases it is the customers who get the bright ideas ahead of the utility companies. Now if we can only get them to listen here? More information: Rhonda Roehm: Delano Corporation, Sulphurdale, Utah. Phone: (801) 438-5569. (To test the line yourself dial: (702) 779-2328). For equipment information: Gerry Brown, Communications Mgr., Westinghouse Electric Corp., Relay Instrument Div., 4300 Coral Ridge Drive, Coral Springs Florida 33065. Phone: (305) 752-6700, ext. 2212.

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