Am I misremembering?

When I was a kid (in the 70s) the family house had a phone extension in my parents' bedroom. I remember being told that Telstra (or whatever they used to be called then...) should not find out because they would charge us more for the phone service, or we would get in trouble for tampering with the installation, or some such thing.

Was this ever actually the case?

Reply to
John
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"John"

** Yep.

........ Phil

Reply to
Phil Allison

The jumper king who lived in the MDF room would test lines, I think doing a polarity reversal and see how long the meter needle took to fall back, giving an indication of the capacitance on across the line. More phones = more capacitance.

IIRC the phones could be strapped share a single cap and still retain the bell in each phone.

Reply to
K Ludger

I worked in an exchange once ... what's a 'jumper king'? The place had air conditioning and we didn't wear jumpers. ;)

Yep, during a line test we could see how much capacitance there was by watching the meter. Lots of times it was obvious that there was more than one phone on the line, but I don't remember anyone ever doing anything about it.

The later 800 series 'colour' phones could be set up with only a single capacitor on the line for more than one phone. I can't quite remember if that was possible on the older 300 & 400 series bakelite phones.

Bob

Reply to
Bob Parker

In the '80s in WA there seemed to be a Tech Assistant who lived in the MDF room running the jumpers between the Cable side of the MDF and the Xchange side. I was in a 3rd in maintenance role in long haul trunk equip (FDM, digital coax and the then newish optical stuff), we all referred to the MDF guy as the jumper king.

Same here, no one was too worried, the techs view seemed to be more phones = more calls = more $$.

Aaah yep - I was thinking 800 series.

Reply to
K Ludger

Ah, right. At the exchange where I was, the MDF jumpering got done by whoever didn't have a lot else to do, often trainees like me.

Later I migrated to the radio communications section and looked after broadband analog microwave systems which was hugely better than running jumpers. :)

Bob

Reply to
Bob Parker

That is "should" be strapped.... as clearly shown in the telecom manuals, and even on the circuit diagram printed inside phones like the 800 series, and many others. People who didn't know how to properly convert the phones deserved to be caught for tampering with Telecom property :-)

MrT.

Reply to
Mr.T

It was in the UK. I got away with a ticking off from the Post Office Telephones Inspector.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

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one

or

Friends of ours had an extension phone in their garage/workshop in the

1970's. Was a legit Telecom install, and as I remember, there was a surcharge of around $2-3 a month for the extra socket.

This was done using the black series 800 rotary dial phones.

Some time later, when I managed to obtain the correct telecom connectors, I made up an "extension" for our place, to get around this problem, simply ran the extension cord out to the shed, and would either plug in the inside phone or the extension cord depending on where I was going to be. (younger readers should also note that being "available" by home phone every second of the day wasn't as important as it seems to be now.) They deregulated it all some years later, and at that time, just parallel wired it, using a cheap dick smith phone as the extension when they first became available

Reply to
kreed

Where I came from in Africa we used drums. If the Chief caught you strapping an extension drum to your back you were in big trouble - you were put into the pot and cooked.

Reply to
Bobby

Yep, that's why many people did it illegally.

Actually black was not a standard colour issue for 800 series phones. Most were ivory, with a variety of alternative colours available.

No need with 800 series phones, proper wiring only required using 3 wires of a two pair cable, and moving one quick connect jumper inside the phone (which was clearly marked inside) and removing the link on the phone socket.

MrT.

Reply to
Mr.T

t

This one is black, looks identical to 800 series ones I see on the net

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ary-dial-phones.html

Still have it actually. Only difference is that the numbers are outside of the dial and are white, and there are small golden triangles at the bottom of the dial holes. Underneath has "AWA" and "68" stamped on it. Took it with me when we moved, as the new place the handset had a fault. When Telstra upgraded us to push button, some time in the early

1990s, they just gave us the new phone in a box, and never bothered to take the rotary dial away. I suppose they would have millions of them to store or get rid of if they had taken them back.

Interestingly my friends 18 year old daughter saw it when they were here once and thought it was "extra cool" :)

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et.

Reply to
kreed

t

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et.

Also should mention that when in Russia, there were phones of identical design to the Telecom series 800s still in common use. The only difference was a cloth covered cord, most were in colours that I have never seen in Australia, and the rotary dials were made of smoked plastic rather than clear - and of course a totally different wall socket. These seemed to be being phased out and replaced with touch phones with digital displays for caller ID etc.

I also saw some exact replicas of early Telecom "commander" phones , but with a rotary dial and without the multi-line leds above the dial like here

Reply to
kreed

Most

ary-dial-phones.html

Funny, there are green, grey and ivory there, but I see no black. HOWEVER I didn't say black 800 series phones were NOT available (I have one myself) but since they are pretty rare, I said they were NOT a STANDARD color, and therefore your statement that implied black as being the standard colour, was wrong. Or maybe you meant only the black ones could be modified? In which case you are still wrong.

MrT.

Reply to
Mr.T

:>>> Was this ever actually the case? :>>

:>> ** Yep. :>>

:>>

:>>

:>>

:>> ........ Phil :>>

:> :> :> The jumper king who lived in the MDF room would test lines, I think doing a :> polarity reversal and see how long the meter needle took to fall back, :> giving an indication of the capacitance on across the line. More phones = :> more capacitance. :> :> IIRC the phones could be strapped share a single cap and still retain the :> bell in each phone. :> :> : : I worked in an exchange once ... what's a 'jumper king'? The place :had air conditioning and we didn't wear jumpers. ;) : : Yep, during a line test we could see how much capacitance there was :by watching the meter. Lots of times it was obvious that there was more :than one phone on the line, but I don't remember anyone ever doing :anything about it. : : The later 800 series 'colour' phones could be set up with only a :single capacitor on the line for more than one phone. I can't quite :remember if that was possible on the older 300 & 400 series bakelite phones. : : :Bob

When I sarted in the PMG in 1956 the standard phone was the 300 series and I carried out many parallel and portable installations in subsequent years. In order to reduce "bell tinkling" while dialling from a parallel phone the bell circuit capacitor in the second (or third) phones had to be disconnected. A 3 wire parallel connection was employed so that the only capacitor in all of the parallel phones was that in bell circuit of the first, or primary phone. All of the bells in the paralleled phones were effectively in parallel and in series with the capacitor in the primary phone. As far as the test desk "capacitor kick" test is concerned, when all phones are on-hook, there is almost no difference (if any at all) in the meter indication compared to when only a single phone is connected to the line.

A typical 300 series portable connection illustrates the principle of parallel connection. While this circuit indicates the use of a fixed bellset and a single portable phone (with handle), the PMG in WA did not use this method AFAIK. The standard method was that a primary, or "fixed", telephone had to be the first connection point (in a similar manner to a standard parallel service) and this was the only phone where the bell capacitor was in circuit.

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Since all 300 series (and earlier) phones used a permanent hardwired connection via a fixed terminal block (except where a portable service was used) there was little chance (apart from someone ripping the incoming cable or line cord from the terminal block) that a phone could be disconnected at the premises, so the capacitor kick from the phone was a very reliable indication of the line condition.

Ever since the mid 1930's when 162AT and the superior 232AT were the standard phones in Australia there has been a provision for a 3rd wire to allow a parallel phone connection using only a single capacitor in the bell circuit. In fact there is probably no reason that earlier models than these could not be connected in parallel using only a single capacitor in the bell circuit.

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The early 800 series phones were essentially improved versions of the older 300 and 400 series phones and still used a magneto bell as the ring indicator. When these were paralleled a 3 wire circuit had to be used similar to the 300/400 series.

The latest of the 800 series phones (eg. 8081) were essentially "all electronic" and the ring indicator was either a 2" loudspeaker or a piezo sounder and these phones could be effectively connected in parallel using a 2 wire connection.

Reply to
Ross Herbert

single

electronic"

Thanks for the info Ross. :) It's all coming back now. It's 36 years since I got out of that section of the PMG/Telecom .... makes me feel old. :)

Bob

Reply to
Bob Parker

Spot on the money there Ross. :-)

As newer phones where introduced (and were still using pulse dialling), an add on device called an anti-tinkle module was wired into the bell circuit of the phones. The module consisted of a simple circuit of semiconductors and resistors encapsulated in a small epoxy block about half the size of a box of matches. It had two connections - one flying grey lead and one fixed spade type terminal which was wired into the bell circuit in the later 800 series phones (both wall mount and table sets). This prevented the bells from tinkling when the phones were wired in parallel using only a two wire cable pair, effectively eliminating the need for the third wire to the other phones.

Cheers, Alan

Reply to
Alan Rutlidge

LOL - best contribution to this thread so far. :-)

Reply to
Alan Rutlidge

You must have been sent to one of the more modern exchanges at that time, I started a few years after you but we only had the older magneto phones and exchanges in the district.

I recall that some of the older techs made sure that one of us trainees was hanging on to the line when they tested with their "portable" phone.

That 90 0r so volts sure livened things up a bit.

single

electronic"

--
Laurie.
Registered Linux user # 468070
Reply to
qmod

"Alan Rutlidge" >> I remember being told that Telstra (or whatever they used to be called

mmmmmm, I wonder if "Bobby" is a psuedo for one of the training school instructors who used to tell us TOITs/TTOs in depth of his Africa/PNG travels.

Reply to
K Ludger

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