Voice tubes were commonly used on vessels as a way to communicate. Early voice tubes were commonly made out of wood or metal, and the long pipe would have one end that was fitted to the mouth and another end that was flared to give maximum efficiency to the receiver. Later designed voice tubes had a removable cork-mounted whistle that could be sounded by blowing into one end of the tube. The idea of voice tubes was introduced by Robert Raymond Smith-Barry in 1917.
However, the idea of using voice tubes dates even further back to the late 1700s when Francis Bacon suggested the idea of using pipes or tubes to communicate. The use of tubes as a means of communication was experimented with and proposed to administrative telecommunications in 1772 by a French monk named Dom Gauthey. Gauthey launched a subscription-supported by Benjamin Franklin and many other French scientists to be able to finance more experiments and hopefully make the voice tube an everyday thing for people. Unfortunately, Gauthey and Franklin were unable to raise enough money, so they let their idea go. Jeremy Bentham, a British philosopher, proposed the inclusion of voice tubes in the architecture plan of his Panopticon, but his idea was shut down. Bentham then reintroduced his idea as a means of military communication; however, he was once again shot down.
Voice tubes with whistles would be used over long distances up to 300 feet. Longer tubes sometimes used electrical signaling to indicate a call. This was because the pipes were so long, which meant they had a lot of air inside them, and it was very difficult to use enough force to blow the whistle located on the other end of the pipe.
Onboard many ships, voice tubes were coated in a sound-absorbent material to reduce the unwanted noise called 'lagging'. Naval ships would the vice tubes when they entered stealth mode for two reasons; one, the voice tubes were not at risk of being compromised by the enemy or any unwanted listeners, and two, the voice tubes were very quiet to anyone else who wasn't listening directly from the flared end of the tube. Multiple ships from the 1950's are still equipped with voice tubes. it's quite common to see bigger vessels have voice tubes. This is because most of the time phones won't work on ships and it would take too long to get orders or directions from the pilot house down to the boiler by foot. Voice tubes were most common in vessels, but they were also used in homes, offices, automobiles, locomotives, and military aircraft. Voice tubes found in homes and offices were smaller and more flexible than the ones found on vessels or aircraft. This was for the convenience of the user. Voice tubes in houses would occasionally have a remote-controlled bell attached to the end of it so homeowners could call for their servants. In offices, some voice tubes would have whistles placed at both ends of the pipe, and they were referred to as "whistle tubes." Several tubes would be hung on the edge of a desk in the office to communicate with different locations within the building.
The design of the voice tube was similarly copied to make acoustic tube headphones, which were mostly used in 2-way radio. In some cases, these were used for patients undergoing an MRI scan who wanted or needed music because the MRI couldn't detect them if they were covered in a clear plastic tube.
Robert Raymond Smith-Barry also created the Gosport tube in 1917, used by flight instructors in the early days of military aviation to give directions and instructions to students learning how to fly.
These days, the voice tube was outdone by the telephone, even though it was a wonderful invention that helped many people. When the weather was bad and the phone was unusable on a ship or train, people would rely on the voice tubes to still be able to communicate.
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