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The Telecom Digest for June 08, 2010
Volume 29 : Issue 154 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Re: DSL and filters for old phones--question (Lisa or Jeff)
Re: DSL and filters for old phones--question (Bob K)
Re: DSL and filters for old phones--question (Wesrock)
Re: DSL and filters for old phones--question (Bob K)
Re: Does anyone know? (schmerold2@gmail.com)
Going through Modems (schmerold2@gmail.com)
Re: DSL and filters for old phones--question (Bill Horne)
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Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2010 20:59:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: Lisa or Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: DSL and filters for old phones--question
Message-ID: <c4874bfa-d421-4c3e-a991-0fd17c971291@u7g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>
On Jun 6, 5:37 pm, sfdavidka...@yahoo.com (David Kaye) wrote:
> The Princess phones came along after party lines were all but
> abandoned, thus the new use for the yellow wire. But indeed, the
> yellow was used as part of the party line ringing circuit.
Just a historical note--party lines remained reasonably common long
after the Princess phone was introduced. Likewise with the Trimline
phone, which also had a dial light. Indeed, back in the 1950s where
were sets with tiny dial lights on them that needed power.
Admittedly, party lines were usually for more frugal customers who
probably wouldn't pay extra for a premium set like a Princess or
Trimline.
Today, many local companies don't even offer party line service at
all. Some allow existing customers to be grandfathered, but no new
customers. I suspect today, in 2010, the number of U.S. party line
subscribers is extremely low.
> Here is a schematic of the Model 500 Bell phone. Note that it has
> red, green, and yellow wires (and no black at all). The arrow
> points to the place where the ringer wire had been separated out to
> the yellow wire during party line service, but for private line
> service it is merged onto the green wire and the yellow is no longer
> connected to anything.
> http://www.porticus.org/bell/pdf/500_modification.pdf
As I understood, a mod to a 500 set was required if the household was
on a "different side" of the party line. Households on the 'main
side' of a party line needed no modification.
In the Bell System, there were four distinct methods to keep party
lines separate, I believe it was a combination of "side" and
"bias" (someone else will have to elaborate). I believe bias was only
used in four party lines, the more common two-party used 'side'.
Note that the panel switch design included all of this so party lines
could each have their own number and private ring automatically.
Rural party lines that exceeded four parties needed coded ringing.
Independent telephone companies often used frequency ringing.
Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2010 09:17:44 -0400
From: Bob K <SPAMpot@Frontiernet.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: DSL and filters for old phones--question
Message-ID: <4C0CF178.8020006@Frontiernet.net>
On 6/6/2010 11:59 PM, Lisa or Jeff wrote:
> On Jun 6, 5:37 pm, sfdavidka...@yahoo.com (David Kaye) wrote:
<snip>
> Just a historical note--party lines remained reasonably common long
> after the Princess phone was introduced. Likewise with the Trimline
> phone, which also had a dial light. Indeed, back in the 1950s where
> were sets with tiny dial lights on them that needed power.
>
> Admittedly, party lines were usually for more frugal customers who
> probably wouldn't pay extra for a premium set like a Princess or
> Trimline.
>
> Today, many local companies don't even offer party line service at
> all. Some allow existing customers to be grandfathered, but no new
> customers. I suspect today, in 2010, the number of U.S. party line
> subscribers is extremely low.
<snip>
> Rural party lines that exceeded four parties needed coded ringing.
>
> Independent telephone companies often used frequency ringing.
>
Oh, we had party line service long after the more modern phones
(Princess and Trimline). And, it wasn't because we were frugal -- we
were on an 8-party line, and that was all we could get because we were
way out in the sticks, almost a mile outside the village limits!
We had to pay more for an 8-party line than those on a 4-party line in
the village. When I questioned the phone company on this, the
explanation I got was "Eight-party phone lines are more heavily loaded
than four-party lines, so we have to provide more telephone poles to
hold the lines up." (Please note I put that in quotes! It is NOT my
explanation!)
But, we are back to the coded ringing! We have a second number now for
a fax machine, so it is like the old days -- one long ring we answer,
the two short rings are for the fax machine (or a wrong number).
....Bob
Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2010 10:12:41 EDT
From: Wesrock@aol.com
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: DSL and filters for old phones--question
Message-ID: <18939.400ec790.393e5859@aol.com>
In a message dated 6/7/2010 7:26:03 AM Central Daylight Time,
hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
On Jun 6, 5:37 pm, sfdavidka...@yahoo.com (David Kaye) wrote:
>> The Princess phones came along after party lines were all but
>> abandoned, thus the new use for the yellow wire. But indeed, the
>> yellow was used as part of the party line ringing circuit.
> Just a historical note--party lines remained reasonably common long
> after the Princess phone was introduced. Likewise with the Trimline
> phone, which also had a dial light. Indeed, back in the 1950s where
> were sets with tiny dial lights on them that needed power.
>
> Admittedly, party lines were usually for more frugal customers who
> probably wouldn't pay extra for a premium set like a Princess or
> Trimline.
>
> Today, many local companies don't even offer party line service at
> all. Some allow existing customers to be grandfathered, but no new
> customers. I suspect today, in 2010, the number of U.S. party line
> subscribers is extremely low.
>
>> Here is a schematic of the Model 500 Bell phone. Note that it has
>> red, green, and yellow wires (and no black at all). The arrow
>> points to the place where the ringer wire had been separated out to
>> the yellow wire during party line service, but for private line
>> service it is merged onto the green wire and the yellow is no longer
>> connected to anything.
>> http://www.porticus.org/bell/pdf/500_modification.pdf
>
> As I understood, a mod to a 500 set was required if the household was
> on a "different side" of the party line. Households on the 'main
> side' of a party line needed no modification.
>
> In the Bell System, there were four distinct methods to keep party
> lines separate, I believe it was a combination of "side" and "bias"
> (someone else will have to elaborate). I believe bias was only used
> in four party lines, the more common two-party used 'side'.
>
> Note that the panel switch design included all of this so party lines
> could each have their own number and private ring automatically.
I don't know of any switches in common use that did not provide for
party line ringing.
However, what you are describing is terminal-per-station operation.
Some offices only provided terminal-per-line service, which meant that
all customers on that line had the same line number, the distinction
between parties being proided by an additional digit at the end, just
like W, J, R and M in manual offices. The final digit normally was
not set off by a hyphen, as in a manual office, but just included as
part of the listed number. So party-line subscribers' numbers had one
more digit that numbers of individual lines.
>> Rural party lines that exceeded four parties needed coded ringing.
>> Independent telephone companies often used frequency ringing.
And thus could provide more than 4 partieis with individual ringing.
Wes Leatherock
wesrock@aol.com
wleathus@yahoo.com
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Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2010 09:02:47 -0400
From: Bob K <SPAMpot@Frontiernet.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: DSL and filters for old phones--question
Message-ID: <4C0CEDF7.6000407@Frontiernet.net>
On 6/6/2010 5:37 PM, David Kaye wrote:
<snip>
> Here is a schematic of the Model 500 Bell phone. Note that it has red, green,
> and yellow wires (and no black at all). The arrow points to the place where
> the ringer wire had been separated out to the yellow wire during party line
> service, but for private line service it is merged onto the green wire and the
> yellow is no longer connected to anything.
>
> http://www.porticus.org/bell/pdf/500_modification.pdf
>
Very interesting diagram. It probably represents what was used in our
area.
The party line ringers used a small vacuum-tube type of relay as part of
the ringer decoding scheme. I still have a ringer around here in my
archives that was left over from the 'old days'. Probably could take
another look at it.
Some areas used harmonic ringing instead, where the ringer responded
only to a particular frequency, and the exchange supplied a variety of
ringing frequencies. I would assume in those cases the yellow wire
would not be needed.
But, the important thing was, the yellow wire should never be connected
directly to either of the talk-pair wires. In my case, that crossed
connection enabled a phone to pick up a 50,000 watt radio station about
15 miles away. I would assume it would do a number on a DSL signal.
....Bob
Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2010 17:33:48 -0500
From: "schmerold2@gmail.com" <schmerold2@gmail.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Does anyone know?
Message-ID: <4C0D73CC.6000002@gmail.com>
Jim Rusling wrote:
> Randall <rvh40@remove-this.insightbb.com> wrote:
>
>> A buddy of mine has a mostly-defunct vending route. (Fifteen years
>> ago he had 200 COCOTs; that business is entirely defunct now).
>>
>> The locations where he has his remaining vending machines have a cell
>> phone number that's been his for a decade or more; it is AT&T, and he
>> pays a monthly bill to keep his service and 250 "free" minutes with
>> no roaming charges. (He is also an OTR trucker, so "no roaming
>> charge" is important).
>>
>> Is there any way he can convert this from a monthly bill to a pre-
>> paid plan AND KEEP THE SAME PHONE NUMBER?
>
> When I checked, they told me no.
T-Mobile did it for my Aunt a couple years ago. She treats the phone as
an emergency phone for the glove box. We got her a phone for $50, put
$100 on the prepaid card, then every year (actually we do it every 50
weeks), we add $10 to the prepaid card. So, she kept her phone # it
costs her $1 per month - that includes all taxes.
***** Moderator's Note *****
A. Because it disrupts the customary top-to-bottom flow of a written communication.
Q. Why is top-posting bad?
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2010 17:14:52 -0500
From: "schmerold2@gmail.com" <schmerold2@gmail.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Going through Modems
Message-ID: <4C0D6F5C.4060707@gmail.com>
I have been going through dial-up modems every couple of months, when
the modem goes, I can connect to Internet, however none of the other
phones get dial-tone unless, I physically remove phone cable from the
computer.
I am thinking there is a bad ground somewhere, but not sure how to
correct. What say the telcom oracles?
Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2010 21:14:03 -0400
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: DSL and filters for old phones--question
Message-ID: <kbKdnSlUneX9BJDRnZ2dnUVZ_oWdnZ2d@speakeasy.net>
On 6/6/2010 5:37 PM, David Kaye wrote:
> Bob K <SPAMpot@Frontiernet.net> wrote:
>
>> In this area, the yellow wire was connected to ground at the demarc --
>> and if you had a Princess type phone that needed power for lights, that
>> power was supplied from a transformer and fed along the black wire,
>> using the yellow for return.
>
> The Princess phones came along after party lines were all but abandoned, thus
> the new use for the yellow wire. But indeed, the yellow was used as part of
> the party line ringing circuit.
>
> Here is a schematic of the Model 500 Bell phone. Note that it has red, green,
> and yellow wires (and no black at all). The arrow points to the place where
> the ringer wire had been separated out to the yellow wire during party line
> service, but for private line service it is merged onto the green wire and the
> yellow is no longer connected to anything.
>
> http://www.porticus.org/bell/pdf/500_modification.pdf
In the Bell System, two-party line ringing was accomplished by applying
ringing between either the ring lead and ground, or the tip lead and
ground. Since the ringing was applied TO GROUND, and one side of the
line was left open during ringing, only one party's phone would ring.
The "Ring" party would thus have their ringer connected between the ring
lead (the one with -48 v on it during idle conditions) and ground, in
series with a capacitor. The "Tip" party would have the ringers in their
phones connected from the tip lead to ground, without a capacitor.
When either party placed a call, the CO would briefly reverse the
polarity of the line, and test to see if current flowed TO GROUND;
if it did, then the call was being placed by the "Tip" party, which had
no capacitor in their phone to block DC flow through the ringer. If
there wasn't any current flow when the CO flipped over the line, it was
the "Ring" party that would be billed.
In areas with a lot of two-party lines, it was common to have
instruments pre-wired with one side of the ringer connected to the red
(Ring) lead, and the other side connected to the Yellow wire, with the
ringer's center taps wired to the capacitor inside the network assembly.
This arrangement meant that at least 2/3 of installations could be
accomplished without needing to open the instrument(s); a single-party
line would have the yellow lead connected to green (Tip) at the
protector, and a two-party line that was provisioned as "Ring" party
would have the yellow lead connected to ground at the protector.
The only time these phones had to be opened was for "Tip" party service,
since the installer had to move the ringer input lead to the green (tip)
side of the line inside the phone, and short the center taps to provide
DC continuity for outgoing party detection. The yellow lead would still
be connected to ground at the protector.
Of course, the presence of a DC load on the tip side of every instrument
would imbalance the line slightly, but the effect was small and most
customers never noticed it given the relatively high resistance of the
ringer coils. However, sometimes "Tip" party customers would obtain and
connect instruments intended for single-party or two-party ring-side
service: although a little experimentation would get the ringing
working, those customers didn't know about outgoing-party-detection, so
their calls would be billed to the Ring party until that customer
complained.
BTW, the "Ringmate" services now offered by most LECs is just
good-old-party-line service with a new name on it, although in most
areas it is tariffed for incoming calls only, with all outgoing calls
billed to a single number. This tariff hack allows customers to plug in
"generic" phones, and the CO uses coded ringing to differentiate the
lines on incoming calls.
Bill Horne
P.S. I never worked on four-party or eight-party lines, and so am not
familiar with harmonic or dc-bias systems: in any case, all four and
eight party lines I ever came across used coded ringing.
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End of The Telecom Digest (7 messages)
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