ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Telephone Systems

Strange, Paul that you should say this,
as when the GPO, over here lost its "Monopoly", there were still a lot of manual exchanges, around the District.
Telecom picked up where the old GPO, left off, they still control the Majority of the Telecommunications in NZ, with ridiculous charges, etc.
They have pretty much, shut out any real competition, by hiking their access charges, beyond anything that would make them competitive.

I have had some horrible belts of phone lines, when hooking up communicators for alarm panels in pokey little cupboards all hot and sweaty. i had the misfortune to work with a utter prat for awhile who proceeded to strip of the incoming pair for line grabbing to the alarm then put them in his mouth while sorting out a return pair, you guessed it the line went live. I still laugh about it 8 years after.....hahahahaha.
FYI the highest ring voltage i have seen here is 45 volts AC, someone told me when i was a tech for the Post Office, way back when. Ours is a BT3 system, terminals 5,2,3 still ring a bell.
CW

45 volts sounds rather low for the "highest" ring voltage. I'd normally only expect to see ring voltage that low on a heavily loaded long line.

Do I take it that NZ is now using the BT connectors as standard then, following the same pattern as the U.K. with a master jack (incorporating blocking capacitor, spark gap, etc.) and then secondaries for extensions?

Trumpy said

“as when the GPO, over here lost its "Monopoly", there were still a lot of manual exchanges, around the District.”

Manual exchanges certainly had certain advantages. Once trying to reach a certain person in Babanango, Kwa Zulu Natal in the mid 80’s ...

Ring – ring …

“Hello, Babanango exchange”

“Hello, could I have number 15 please”

“Are you after Mr B****?”

“Yes I am”

“Well he’s not there right now”

“Oh”

“No, he’s over at Oom K****’s place having a braai [barbeque] ”

“Oh – OK”

“I’ll put you through to Oom K**** if you like”

“Yes please, Thank-you”

Ring-ring …

Eat your heart out Mr. Gates!

May well have been higher i have never spent any real time looking, sure feels higher when i get a tickle
CW

Appy,
Don't forget that the AC ring voltage is superimposed on 48 or 50V DC battery as well. I'm not sure how the frequency affects the "feel" of the tingle either -- AC ringing is generally around 15 to 25Hz rather than 50/60Hz powerline frequencies.

Hutch,
I guess the "all-knowing" operator could be a mixed blessing. Ever seen the Little House episodes where Harriett Olson is running the switchboard? Probably a Mrs. Olson existed at many rural boards!

SvenNYC:

A Verizon tech told me that the 90VAC was raised (this was about a year ago) to over 100VAC. He also told me that they were going to be removing a whole lot of fiber (fibre?) optics because so many people can't get DSL. (I must be right on the border...just down the street a neighbor was told his line could not qualify...)

Another voltage number to throw at you is for the coin phones. (Here, I refer to the good old-fashioned "telephone company" phones, not the private ones that pop up on every corner. The collection method may have changed with the more modern switching equipment--I am not certain.) They were set up so that the coin(s) were held until the disposition of the call was determined. If the call was completed, there were 70VDC sent across the line via a 3rd wire. If the call was not completed, again, 70VDC came over the 3rd wire. Depending on the polarity, the coin would drop into the collection box or down the "coin return" chute.

The privately-owned coin phones are not set up this way. (Thus the muted mouthpiece until the call connects...)

ThinkGood has raised a good point about the old coin phone lines.

I've never heard of the 3rd-wire 70V system (phone companies would normally try to minimize wiring where possible), but it may well have been used by one of the former independent companies now in the Verizon area.

Many coin phones used a local ground connection -- They were often ground-start, meaning that to get dial tone the phone grounded one side of the line when you inserted your nickel or dime (or dimes/quarter after inflation!).

I know that for many years the Bell System coin phones used a coin collect/return system based on a + or - 120V DC pulse on one side of the line. I forget which polarity was for which function. I don't know if any of these systems are still in use in some remote part of the country.

In the U.K. our old coin phones were less sophisticated, and callers were instructed to press one of two buttons. Button A was coin collect and through a mechanical linkage dropped the coin(s) into the box and removed a short from the transmitter so that the caller could talk. Button B returned the coins (after getting a busy signal for example) and engaged a timer which opened the line for a few seconds to drop the call.

Ma Bell was the more sophisticated!

Hi, Paul.

Actually, the installer I had spoken with was working on a real "Ma Bell" coin phone (this was, oh, almost 15 years ago).

Cheers ;-)

One more thing.

I once bought a reconditioned test set from a company over 10 years ago. Still works just fine. The website is http://www.southerninstruments.com/

The same guy (George) is still there ;-)

They are great about answering questions, so if there's something that can't be answered here, maybe they can help.

One more is http://www.becophones.com/

They have a lot of the older equipment that is POTS-oriented.

(Standard disclaimer...I have nothing to do with the companies other than I bought some stuff from them years ago...good, old-fashioned phones/testers that survive the ladder-drop test--ouch!)

[This message has been edited by ThinkGood (edited 12-15-2002).]