[GreenKeys] Telephone Hand Crank Dynamo
Bob via GreenKeys
greenkeys at mailman.qth.net
Wed Jun 17 11:43:19 EDT 2015
When I went to work for a large power company in 1973 they had miles of
open wire "OW", the OW was
protected with copper blocks that had a thin mica sheet in the middle, high
voltage would cause a arc-over and put a ground on the line until it was
cleared. The drop side going to a instrument had carbon blocks spaced close
together that would also arc across and ground the line until cleared.
Seven amp fuses were commonly in series with the protection blocks. Ringing
voltage from a hand cranked mag would tend to
drop after some distance and we had "ring repeaters" that would repeat the
20~ ringing voltage to get it
where it was going-
I have a PBX in my shop made by AE, the operator had a manual crank for a
back up, normally used the
20~ provided from a "Sub-cycle" generator-
Bob
K6OSM
In a message dated 6/17/2015 8:30:02 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
Telegrapher at Q.com writes:
All lines coming and going out of the CO were protected by small
"carbons". There was another name for it but i can't remember it exactly but it set
between the outside and the inside facility. In the event of any
lightning that may have affected or hit a box or facility, those little fuse type
things would open up. Then of course the cust got no dial tone and would go
somewhere to report it. Usually the first test done was from the test
desk in the cO and if they couldn't see any capacity indicating the line was
still connected, they would have a frameman go and replace those small
interfaces. Damn, i can't think of the right name for them. Carbon blocks were
used in the older line facilities but these things looked like a small
bobbin of wound wire.
Even trunk and outside cabling had the same type protection in the CO as
well at as at the terminating end.
O
n 6/16/2015 9:17 PM, Richard Knoppow wrote:
Small offices could be either local battery or common battery. Common
battery systems had a DC supply at the CO, local battery systems had dry cells
in each phone. Either could use magneto ringing. The method with a
local battery line was to pick up the phone and listen for a moment to make
sure the line was clear. That is because nearly all lines were party lines.
If the line was clear the receiver was put back on the hook and the
operator was called by working the crank on the magneto. That caused the ringer
and lights to work on the switchboard. The operator would answer with
"operator" or "Number please" and you would tell her. She would then connect
you to the phone you wanted. I no longer remember how calls were placed to
phones on your own party line but you could ring them directly by using
the crank to generate the party code. Most of these phones had two long life
No.6 cells which would be replaced by the phone company about twice a year.
They were for the microphone in the wall set. Each phone had its own
batteries. Evidently systems like this were in use until the 1960s. There
is a good deal of information on both local and common battery telephone
systems on the web and a google search will find it.
A good deal of listening in or "rubbering" was done. There were never
many subscribers on a line so everyone knew everyone else's "ring". If
enough people were listening the level would go way down. I lived with a
local battery phone for several years. My parents owned some property in
rural Michigan and we spent the summers there. The phones would go out if
there was a storm coming. At the time I thought it was because the lines were
down but I now think the lines were grounded at the CO to prevent
lightening damage.
On 6/16/2015 7:37 PM, drlegendre . wrote:
As I have come to understand it..
In the very early days, the hand-crank magneto served only one purpose -
to ring a bell down at 'central' (the phone company office) - it did not
supply current for the voice circuit - that was done by the talk battery. In
those days, a local system might have only a couple dozen circuits, at the
most.
When the operator heard you ring-in, they would connect your line to a
talk battery, with their headset (or handset) on the other end of the loop.
You'd then tell the operator who you wished to call, and the operator would
then connect the recipient's line to the operator's crank magneto - and then
the operator would use their mag to ring the bell on the recipient's
phone. In some cases, the operator would connect the two lines at that time, and
allow you to use your mag to ring the recipient's bell, if the distance
was short enough.
Once the recipient answered, the operator would say "call from Ray Morgan"
(if needed) and connect the two lines together on a talk battery loop. The
operator would then listen-in only as needed (...) and when the
conversation was over, they'd re-connect all of the circuits back to the default
jacks.
Please feel free to correct this..
On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 7:32 PM, Roy Morgan <_k1lky68 at gmail.com_
(mailto:k1lky68 at gmail.com) > wrote:
On Jun 15, 2015, at 12:01 PM, Howard Weeks <_weeksh at att.net_
(mailto:weeksh at att.net) > wrote:
> Roy,
>
> Those things will produce up to about 80 - 100 volts depending on the
crank speed and condition of contacts,
> On 6/15/2015 11:32 AM, Roy Morgan wrote:
>> Greenkeyers and telephone historians,
>>
>> I have acquired a hand crank dynamo of the sort used in ole time
telephones.
Thanks to all for information about the hand crank telephone dynamotor:
- 80 to 100 volts
- about 20 cycles
- rings a bell or other device at the operators place
- will bite you if you are careless
- wil bring worms up from the ground
It’s nice to hear from folks who remember using them (even while standing
on a chair to reach the thing!)
Roy
Roy Morgan
_k1lky68 at gmail.com_ (mailto:k1lky68 at gmail.com)
K1LKY Since 1958
______________________________________________________________
GreenKeys mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/greenkeys
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:_GreenKeys at mailman.qth.net_
(mailto:GreenKeys at mailman.qth.net)
2002-to-present greenkeys archive:
_http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/greenkeys/
1998-to-2001_ (http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/greenkeys/
1998-to-2001) greenkeys archive:
http://mailman.qth.net/archive/greenkeys/greenkeys.html
Randy Guttery's 2001-to-2009 GreenKeys Search Tool:
http://comcents.com/tty/greenkeyssearch.html
This list hosted by: _http://www.qsl.net_ (http://www.qsl.net/)
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
______________________________________________________________
GreenKeys mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/greenkeys
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:GreenKeys at mailman.qth.net
2002-to-present greenkeys archive:
http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/greenkeys/
1998-to-2001 greenkeys archive:
http://mailman.qth.net/archive/greenkeys/greenkeys.html
Randy Guttery's 2001-to-2009 GreenKeys Search Tool:
http://comcents.com/tty/greenkeyssearch.html
This list hosted by: _http://www.qsl.net_ (http://www.qsl.net/)
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
--
Richard Knoppow
_1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com_ (mailto:1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com)
WB6KBL
______________________________________________________________
GreenKeys mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/greenkeys
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:GreenKeys at mailman.qth.net
2002-to-present greenkeys archive:
http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/greenkeys/
1998-to-2001 greenkeys archive:
http://mailman.qth.net/archive/greenkeys/greenkeys.html
Randy Guttery's 2001-to-2009 GreenKeys Search Tool:
http://comcents.com/tty/greenkeyssearch.html
This list hosted by: _http://www.qsl.net_ (http://www.qsl.net/)
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
______________________________________________________________
GreenKeys mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/greenkeys
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:GreenKeys at mailman.qth.net
2002-to-present greenkeys archive:
http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/greenkeys/
1998-to-2001 greenkeys archive:
http://mailman.qth.net/archive/greenkeys/greenkeys.html
Randy Guttery's 2001-to-2009 GreenKeys Search Tool:
http://comcents.com/tty/greenkeyssearch.html
This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/greenkeys/attachments/20150617/4bfaa24b/attachment.html>
More information about the GreenKeys
mailing list