Ma Bell's recordings..

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Joseph
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Re: Ma Bell's recordings..

Post by Joseph »

I just recently was thinking of those. There was a story on I think NPR about a school science project in which one had to get a message transported a short distance. They were talking about lobbing wadded notes. However the first thing that came to my mind was the stretched string and two sounding devices, one on each end. I hadn't ever though of plucking the string to do the ringing function.

I still have my landline. I want to keep it if I can, considering my memories of it's robustness of almost never going dead after storms. It was a networked system going back a long ways, where alternate signal paths were available in many cases when some lines got damaged.
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Lenp
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Re: Ma Bell's recordings..

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I think the era of bullet proof hard wired system of years gone by is drawing to a close. In many areas, the copper system is fed by a box-on-the road called a SLC (Subscriber Loop Carrier)or(Subscriber Line Concentrator) where either high speed data on wired or fiber circuits is converted to/from the POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) circuits. It acts as a local exchange, providing talk battery, ringing and supervision services and eliminates all the one phone, one pair wiring back to the central office. Locally powered, it does have battery backup, but it's run time is limited. In long duration storms I've seen the telco truck parked aside it powering and charging the unit from it's generators, but in bad storms, the unit is often inaccessible. Also, the to-your-door fiber system, are powered by distribution repeaters and switches, plus the terminal units at the subscriber location that convert it to metallic circuits. Those batteries don't last as long as a bad storm either.

I have a Panasonic multi phone cordless phone system, and when the power goes down, the battery that is in the phone in the base unit powers the base. You can keep switching phones but nothing lasts forever. Even cell towers go down in power failures, but a more interesting phenomenon is the excessive calls that overload a system during a bad storm.

One short and two long rings....will be nevermore.
Len

“To invent, you need a good imagination and a big pile of junk.” (T. Edison)
"I must be on the way to success since I already have the junk". (Me)
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Joseph
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Re: Ma Bell's recordings..

Post by Joseph »

I think I had some run-in with that box on the road. It seemed to have a bad connection in the past, causing static in my phone. I have passed by it on the roadside every now and then. I knew about the POTS acronym from here, but now I just found out about the SLC. That's too bad about the lost robustness of the POTS.
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Re: Ma Bell's recordings..

Post by dyarker »

I remember how the landlines kept operating after bad storms, even though the electricity was out.
Phones run from a central office don't need local power company electricity. The last central office I worked at the telephone switch ran on 8 hours worth of batteries. The rectifier unit that charged the batteries did normally run on power company electricity, but also had an auto-start diesel generator.

So with double backed power, CO lines work through area power outages. This does not help VoIP phones which need UPS on IP switching hubs and routers to continue working.
Dale Y
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Lenp
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Re: Ma Bell's recordings..

Post by Lenp »

Hi Dale,
The point being is that in many areas, they do not run from Central Office power like conventional POTS.
The service is a mixed blend of service powered by either the SLC's power from a local pole, the subscriber's interface, powered by a wall wart and backup battery and in a big outage, from both...for awhile!
Len

“To invent, you need a good imagination and a big pile of junk.” (T. Edison)
"I must be on the way to success since I already have the junk". (Me)
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Externet
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Re: Ma Bell's recordings..

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This is what the 48V batteries at the central office look like :

http://wigblog.blogspot.com/wigblog-200 ... backup.jpg
- Abolish the deciBel ! -
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dacflyer
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Re: Ma Bell's recordings..

Post by dacflyer »

that is big,, our city central office used to be larger,, it had 8" X 8" X several feet of solid copper buss bars with many many taps for each battery.. the batteries were 2V @ 1,000A if i remember right.. they were Edison brand. there were signs all over the place NO SMOKING or OPEN Flame or Sparks.
the batteries had a alkaline mix in them and then about 2-3" of oil on top of that.
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Lenp
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Re: Ma Bell's recordings..

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I once worked for Western Electric as a central office installer. We had a clown that would try to sail aluminum foil airplanes into the exposed buss bars.
He succeeded once, just before he was escorted out of the CO!
So foolish. He gained a reputation and lost a job, all in one single flash.....
Len

“To invent, you need a good imagination and a big pile of junk.” (T. Edison)
"I must be on the way to success since I already have the junk". (Me)
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Joseph
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Re: Ma Bell's recordings..

Post by Joseph »

For an Edison battery, I thought it would have been a nickel-iron battery, or could that be a type of alkaline battery?

That was crazy what he did. I was so error prone on my jobs I don't recall ever trying to ruin something on purpose. It just seems plain wrong anyway.
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Lenp
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Re: Ma Bell's recordings..

Post by Lenp »

I don't think he was trying to cause damage, just childish pranking, but, with the possible presence of hydrogen gas, he could have got way more than he bargained for. The fault current was likely neglible considering the battery ampacity, but Mama Bell was not not the least bit tolerant of such wrong doings in her house.

There once was an employee that nobody liked, not even the super; but he was family of some upper mucks. One day he fell asleep on the top of a cable rack during lunch time. Several of us very quietly and carefully strapped him to the rack with canvas load binders. From his vantage point, he couldn't see us under the rack. Oddly, 'nobody' heard his bellowing, except the supervisor, when it was close to quiting time. The event was just forgotten.
Len

“To invent, you need a good imagination and a big pile of junk.” (T. Edison)
"I must be on the way to success since I already have the junk". (Me)
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