Any Idea What This Is ?

 
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coal berner
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Post by coal berner » Sun. Feb. 21, 2010 1:34 am

crazysteamer wrote:Standard phone connections are RED / GREEN for the line 1, YELLOW / BLACK for line 2 - today. Ring and tip are the same today as they were with rotary phones before since there are still people with rotary phones in use combined with touch tone - there are actually touch-tone phones that have switches on them to get them to output 'pulses' instead of tones. My father-in-law here on the farm refuses to pay 'extra' for touch-tone service, so he has the basic with a button phone that outputs pulses.

When that 4-square was installed, yellow / black were probably not used as multi-line households were totally unheard-of. As mentioned, sometimes those connectors were used for power to 'lighted dials' and would have a small power supply connected at the interface surge supressor demark or somewhere in the house where 110 vac power was available to 'inject'.

That 4-square was not restricted to 'rotary' phones.

There were many touch-tone phones built with that jack until about 1975, when the phone company decided to go to the 'modular' system currently used.

Remember when touch-tones phones were introduced to the public? NYC World's Fair, 1964 in the public pay phone booths. After the first week, almost all had been ripped out and stolen by people that didn't realize that they could not use them at home. Ma Bell had to put up signs explaining that theft was of no use - phone would not work.

Last I looked, RadioShack still SOLD a converter from 4-square to modular.

The problem with connecting OLD phones is not one of the connection, but one of 'ring equivalency' - the power necessary to make the bell ring. If the RE is too high (or the total RE for the house is too high), the phone company may not be able to send enough current down the new lines at 68 VDC to make the bell ring.

This isn't a problem with the new electronic phones, but the old phones took quite a lot of 68VDC to cause the bell to function.

If you have a phone with a magneto in it, you do NOT want to connect it to the telephone system.

When you spin the magneto, the phone sent voltage BACK to to the switchboard to let the operator know you wanted to make a call. Sending voltage BACK DOWN a phone line today will cause major problems at the phone company end and may very well damage any phones you have connected in your own house.

Theoretically, the phone company should protect itself (lightning and all that), but there is no guarantee that any of the phones in your house have any protection, and if you spin the magneto hard enough to exceed the 'nominal' 68 VDC that the phones are designed to handle - you have just become the local RadioShack's best customer.
I to am like your farther in law I still have pulses and still have the 4 pin wall jacks with the Modular adaptor in it
Radio shack still sells them

 
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Post by crazysteamer » Sun. Feb. 21, 2010 8:32 am

Yes on the pole climbing.

Around here, there are green stubs on the ground.

All you need is a lineman's handset (which I have) and anyone can connect to any pair and make a phone call to anywhere - and the phone pair's 'owner' pays the bill.

 
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Post by Dann757 » Sun. Feb. 21, 2010 10:05 am

Back in the day of pay phones, my high school buddy had a big brother that was into electronics. The early 70's. There were books like "Steal This Book" by Abbie Hoffman going around, which advocated taping over the hole on a #10 brass flat washer to use as a slug in making pay phone calls. As adolescents, we got a kick out of this subversive behavior.
Well, my buddies big brother took us to the phone junction box in the garage, and hooked up a resistor to the line. He told us to go downtown and call the house. The call was free! I don't know how it worked, but we thought that was "far out"!

 
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Post by RMA » Mon. Feb. 22, 2010 11:55 am

Dann757 wrote:Back in the day of pay phones, my high school buddy had a big brother that was into electronics. The early 70's. There were books like "Steal This Book" by Abbie Hoffman going around, which advocated taping over the hole on a #10 brass flat washer to use as a slug in making pay phone calls. As adolescents, we got a kick out of this subversive behavior.
Well, my buddies big brother took us to the phone junction box in the garage, and hooked up a resistor to the line. He told us to go downtown and call the house. The call was free! I don't know how it worked, but we thought that was "far out"!
And in the day before armored handset cables. (the fifties) all you had to do was put a small cut in the handset wire, exposing copper, shorting them would get you a dial tone...you could call anywhere...Of course at the tender age of eight years old we didn't have anyone to call... You could also have fun dialing 550-6 at our friend's house...that would get you an automatic call back...a ring with no one there! [at least that's the way NJ Bell worked many years ago]

Bob


 
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Post by WNY » Mon. Feb. 22, 2010 2:01 pm

You can still get the plugs and sockets for the old 4 pins...

http://www.phonecoinc.com/category.asp?map=1&grou ... &horh=home

 
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Post by coal berner » Mon. Feb. 22, 2010 2:03 pm

WNY wrote:You can still get the plugs and sockets for the old 4 pins...

http://www.phonecoinc.com/category.asp?map=1&grou ... &horh=home
Or Radio shack

 
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Post by WNY » Mon. Feb. 22, 2010 2:06 pm

I didn't see them online search at Radio Shack, but figured they still had them (or special order)..... :)
Worked there for 3 years.....learned a lot.

 
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Post by AA130FIREMAN » Mon. Feb. 22, 2010 2:14 pm

They are available on ebay Recoton T24 modular jack converter. I just upgraded to the new style.


 
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Post by GeorgiePorgie » Mon. Feb. 22, 2010 2:17 pm

I don't remember 68 volts D.C. anywhere !

-48 Volts is the actual standby "On hook " voltage
Ring voltage is actually A.C. 20 Hz 93 to 105 Volts, while a phone is in the "On hook " there is hardly any current coming from the Local CO. reason being: " a capacitor is built in to the phone , and capacitors blocks DC " the Phone compnay send a ring signal to a phone, by an AC voltage, and that usually goes through the capacitor and causes the phone to ring. You can easily get shocked if you happen to work on hooking up a phone line while someone is actually calling that number.

Long time ago I designed circuits to phone company specifications, I don't remember all the details , but I do remember, that the specs for Russia were different, and the main difference is the following :

In the U.S. while a phone is " On hook " is very close to having that phone disconnected, in other words the mouth piece is disconnected and so with the ear piece and that's usually in the multicontacts switch beneath the handset.

but the Russians always wanted to ability to be able to listen to the area surrounding the phone, whether "on hook " or not, so the circuit connecting the mouth piece was not deactivated when you hang up the phone.
Last edited by GeorgiePorgie on Mon. Feb. 22, 2010 2:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

 
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Post by AA130FIREMAN » Mon. Feb. 22, 2010 2:27 pm

GeorgiePorgie wrote:the one with the 4 prongs, is simply a phone jack, the first and second pictures, are part of an intercom system if you push the lever down ( push to talk ) then you can talk into that module and your voice will be carried out and heard form another part of the house. You push to talk, because it's a simplex mode intercom !
The speakers on the intercom are shot/ cones are torn. They have part #'s that are not available. Will a regular speaker work to talk and listen outside ? The inside gives static when the leaver is turned to listen.

 
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Post by GeorgiePorgie » Mon. Feb. 22, 2010 3:04 pm

AA130FIREMAN wrote: The speakers on the intercom are shot/ cones are torn. They have part #'s that are not available. Will a regular speaker work to talk and listen outside ? The inside gives static when the leaver is turned to listen.
Any small speaker you can find that will fit, should work, try not to look for a microphone, the speaker acts as a microphone as well, to eliminate static, you can clean electrical contact, if they are accessible, use a pencil eraser, if not, you can buy some electrical contact cleaner spray.

 
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Post by coal berner » Mon. Feb. 22, 2010 4:48 pm

WNY wrote:I didn't see them online search at Radio Shack, but figured they still had them (or special order)..... :)
Worked there for 3 years.....learned a lot.
Got my three new ones there last Summer ;)

 
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Post by I'm On Fire » Wed. Feb. 09, 2011 8:04 pm

I'm 33 and I remember the house I grew up in, in Highland Lakes, NJ had one of those in my 'rent's bedroom. My dad installed it...for some unknown reason....

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