These are historical technical papers from The Bell System Technical Journal, reproduced for reference and independent research on lead-sheathed telephone cables.
Each paper here was published in the United States between 1922 and 1963. The Online Books Page’s copyright record for the journal reports no renewals of any issue or contribution in the Catalog of Copyright Entries or the Copyright Office’s online records; automatic renewal begins only with the January 1964 issue (Online Books Page, The Bell System Technical Journal copyright information, checked November 2, 2026). On that basis these papers are treated as being in the public domain in the United States. Their status in other countries may differ.
Each text was produced from a scan by optical character recognition and then checked and corrected by hand. Some errors may remain. Equations, tables and figures were re-typeset or cropped from the scan. The scanned original is the authoritative version. Corrections are welcome: info@tahoelead.com.
This site is not affiliated with or endorsed by Nokia Bell Labs, AT&T or IEEE. Their names, and that of the Bell System, are used only to identify where the papers came from.
The papers describe the practice and knowledge of their time. Nothing here is engineering, legal, health or environmental advice.
This incredible outcome was delivered by a broad range of stakeholders coming together. We’re grateful to AT&T, their 3rd party partners, the 7 government agencies that authorized removal activities, all our petition signers, and the broader Lake Tahoe community. We got the lead out!
Questions? info@tahoelead.com
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