ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Anyone interested in Austrian systems?

About the audio equipment: it's a Sony compact stereo from the late 70ies with only radio and tape deck, intended to work nearly everywhere. You can set it to 100, 120, 127, 220 and 240V, works on 50 or 60Hz, but has a standard unpolarized, ungrounded American plug.
I found some nice pics, try to post them (some taken in the US, the family I was staying with once had rather strange arrangements in their NYC appartment, some from a german DIY book "Basic electrical repairs easy done", contains pics and wiring schemes, some taken when rewiring an appartment.)
Question: What are those standard US switches called? I mean the light switches with a small handle sticking out of them.
I like them, they were common around here in the 50ies and early 60ies, was rather surprised to find them everywhere in the US.
A little bit late, but merry x-mas to all.

Sorry, already found out about the switches when browsing the Home Depot site. Must be toggle switches. Interesting what they sell, especially those "fit a grounded plug into an ungrounded receptacle"-adaptors for 57 cents. Impossible to even think of selling that kinda stuff here.
What do you think of computer power cords for 83 cents each?

Toggles were common here until the 1970s, but the British manufacturers only make rockers now, except for a few high-priced brass types (e.g. mock Edwardian).

I prefer toggles, and I particularly like the American traditional-style types. If and when I come to do a rewire on any future house I buy, I'll probably order a batch for myself. Some types are rated 277V (used for commercial lighting in the States), so they're fine for our 220 - 240V in Europe.

By the way, which way up are your light switches in Austria? Down for on as in Britain, or up for on as in America?

Usually up for on, but it's hard to distinguish, so most electricians put them in as they want. Sometimes even the labeling on the switch is top-down, as the one in my room. I personally prefer the American way.
Historic facts: Until the mid 70 ies there was the old color coding. Hot was black, neutral grey, and, important for anyone used to the British system, GROUND is red. It's still Legal in old systems and as the wires are mostly in decent shape you'll find it quite often. However, no one stuck to this. Most commonly all wires had the same color. I've seen both wires black, both white, both green, both yellow, zip cord buried in plaster, ...

Yeah, most electrical accessories like power cords are cheaper in the U.S. than anywhere in Europe (Just like books, clothes, cars, food, houses.... Sigh!)

I grew up with the British down=on, but having gotten used to it in America I prefer up=on as well. I was already used to this arrangement on a lot of imported Japanese test equipment anyway.

I was going to ask about Austrian color codes before the European standard came in. I'd read that Germany used to use the black/gray/red scheme, so I wondered if it had also been used in Austria.

I've often tried to find out what was used in other European countries before brown/blue/green-yellow, but I've never had any luck tracking down the details.
Getting a list of the other countries' systems might give a clue as to why the present colors were selected as a common standard.

The U.K. adopted the common European colors in 1970, but only for flexible cords on appliances. Fixed wiring cables stayed with the original colors, which leads to some conflict (although the original green for ground was later changed to green-yellow).

By the way, due to trading & historical factors, the Republic of Ireland has generally followed British practice.



[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 12-27-2001).]

As far as I know the GDR and Hungary also had the black-gray-red-code. Hungary also had aluminum wiring. Maybe Kent can tell us if that color code was also used in sweden.
I know the old British color code since I took apart a really old Tape recorder years ago. It was manufactured by Modern Techniques, no idea when. It had no plug, only bare wire ends and I tried to hook it up but didn't succed. No wonder when you try to connect the hot to the ground. However, no one got shocked and it was broken anyway. So I threw it to the dump. Never saw something like that again.

Maybe I'll tell something about phones in Austria. Now we have tonbe dial and a semi-digital system like most other countries, but since fall 2000 there was also the old system, based on pulse dial. Due to the fact that there were not enough phone wires in the streets in the 50ies or maybe even earlier our national phone company invented two kinds of phone connections. There was one, more expensive, where a customer had an own line and could call whenever he/she wanted. And there were parted lines, called "quarter accounts". 4 to 10 users shared one line and only one could talk. the phone had a button you had to press before dialing. If you got the dial tone you were lucky, if not, you had to wait. In suburban areas like the one i live in, the phone lines were built for one single-user connection per house, but in the late 80ies big appartment blocks for wealthy people were built who often had a single connection in every appartment, so the other people hardly ever got those connections. (My father applied for one for 10 years because he needed it for his business. He never got one. The lapidar answer by the post officer was: There are already five phones at that line. We cant't hook you up too. Wait for the change to digital system. We never figured out how they managed to hook up five single connections to one line, even with the help of a telecom worker.)

I've always been fascinated with telephone systems, so your comments are interesting. In fact, some years ago I worked for British Telecom. That was just after privatization in about 1982; prior to that our telephone network was state-owned and run by our GPO (General Post Office), much like the PTTs you have in many parts of Continental Europe.

Digital exchanges are now installed in all but the most remote parts of the U.K. Tone dialing started to be introduced in the 1980s; the DTMF tones are the same as those used in the U.S. and worldwide, although our supervisory tones (ring, busy, etc.) are different. All lines will still accept pulse dial.

We also had party lines here, but usually with only two subscribers per line. Most, if not all, have now been phased out.

Distinction between the two parties was by simple wiring changes to the phones at each house. In British terminology the "tip" connection (+) is the A-wire and the "ring" connection (-) is the B-wire. For a normal line the bell is wired with its series capacitor across the line.

For a party line however, a ground rod was installed at each house. The bell on one phone (called the X subscriber) was then wired B-wire to ground, and that on the other (the Y subscribe) from A-wire to ground. That way the exchange could ring either bell separately.

The "Call" button, used to obtain dial tone, was wired to interrupt the normal loop and ground the B-wire on one phone (x), the A-wire on the other (Y).

In practice, the wiring in the telephone at both subscribers was identical, but the A and B wires would be swapped over at the junction box of the Y subscriber. Party-line phones were always hard-wired.

The colors used for the phone cords then were: red (B), white (A), blue, and green. Blue was normally used between extension phones to prevent bell-tinkling. Green was usually the bell return -- grounded on party lines, strapped to white at the junction box on normal lines.

The same colors are used on modern phones with modular-style jacks (not the same as U.S. types), but the bell wiring is different. Fixed wiring colors are different again.

I know some rural areas of the U.S.A. used to have party lines with 3 or more subscribers. I believe they added frequency-selective bells for ringing and outgoing calls were identified by the phone placing different values of resistance to ground.

Maybe the Austrian system used some combinaton of these methods?

More about phones.
ALL our phones were hardwired. single lines had a 4-conductor junction box, though only 2 were used, maybe three for an additional bell. I think tip and ring are reversed here. a is white, b is brown. Party lines here were much more complicated. There was a complicated circuit at the service station, and more electronics in the j-box, which was about 20 to 20 to 10 cm. They used a 10 conductor cable between box and phone, with lots of colors. Party lines had always numbers with one additional digit (in Vienna 7 digits instead of 6) and the last digit distinguished between the users. So you could see by the numbers who hung together. They have all been replaced by I think November 2000.
Additional: Old party line phones (until mid seventies) had a circle indicator. Normally it was black. when you picked up the handset it started turning black and white, then the line was free. Or it immediately turned white, and the line was busy. So you didn't have to press the dial button when you knew the line was busy. First phone numbers in Vienna had 5 digits. In the 20ies or 30ies a new system came up. 6 digits, the first one a letter, for example U 26 350. It was like the American 1-800-NYTIMES numbers. Then in the late 50ies the 6- and 7 digit system came up. Now all numbers have 7 digits, in smaller cities or villages 4 to 6. Our OEPT (Oesterreichische Post- und Telegraphenverwaltung, Austrian Post and Telegraph department) was privatized to PTA (Post und Telekom Austria) around 1997.

[This message has been edited by Texas_Ranger (edited 12-29-2001).]

Your party line systems sound as though they were quite complex with a relay set and indicator on the phone. Did the system prevent you from over-hearing conversatios; it sounds as though the complex switching might have done so.

There was no special relationship between the two numbers for a party line here; each line could be jumpered to any valid outlet on the final selector.

Numbering schemes here used varying numbers of digits, from 3-digits on small rural exchanges to 4, 5, or 6-digits in towns. London had 7 digit numbers, originally assigned as 3 letters plus 4 numbers, e.g. MAY 2765 (Mayfair). Five other big cities had similar schemes. The dials were slightly different to U.S. types, in that 6 was just MN, and the letter O was on the zero. The letters were dropped about 30 years ago to give more capacity. Were Austrian dials any different?

STD (Subscriber Trunk Dialling) was introduced in the late 1950s, but it was already possible in many areas to call neighboring exchanges directly with local dialling codes (e.g. 9, 91, 82).

The STD code for London was 01, those for the other five big cities 021, 031, etc. Originally they were written with the middle digit as a letter, e.g. 0L1 (051) for Liverpool.

The smaller towns were allocated codes such as 0FA6 (Falmouth) and 0BR2 (Bristol), but again the letters were dropped later to give 0326, 0272, etc.

Over the last few years there have been a lot of changes. The 3,4, and 5-digit numbers have all been made up to 6 digits, and London and a few other areas have now been given 8-digits.

The STD codes have changed as well to make room for more mobile, premium, toll-free codes etc. The recent changes were badly planned: The code/numbers for London have changed no less than three times in the last few years.

Have you implemented the new EU-wide 112 emergency number there yet? What are the Austrian codes for emergency, operator, information, and so on?

Yes, I was told that the party line system was about the most complex system ever used here. It prevented from over-hearing conversations. There was only one special issue: When the handset was taken off without calling, anyone who called could overhear the conversations in the room without being noticed. On single lines he/she would have gotten the busy signal under these circumstances.
I have no idea about the letter scheme as it was dropped long before I was born. I have a phone from 1949, but it has a newer rotary dial without letters. I think STD was introduced about the same time, but rural areas had operator based manual connections until the early 70ies. With the area codes they messed around a lot. In the last 15 years nearly everything changed. If you get a phone number that is older than 10 years cou can be almost sure it won't work any more, because during the exchange to digital system everyone's phone number was changed. Some area codes remained, but for example Vienna was changed from 0222 to 01 a few years ago. There were also special short area codes in some areas, for example from Baden to Wien (about 20 km or less) it was 9 (I think), though I'm not sure as I never used them, and they all started with 9.
The 112 number is not yet implemented, our emergency numbers are 122 for fire department, 133 for police and 144 for ambulance.There are some more of those 1.. numbers, for example the automobile clubs have special emergency lines. Numbers for information, service hotline (we have a special hotline to report numbers that doesn't work, broken phones owned by the company, ... With Telekom Austria in Vienna 11120) have changed so often I always need to look them up.
Some words about directories here. There are directories for every one of our 9 states, bigger states like lower Austria have more than one, for example Lower Austria north-east, LO north-west, LO south-east and LO south-west. Bigger cities have their own directory. The Vienna directory once consisted of four yellow A4 size, 2" thick books, white pages A-H, I-Q and R-Z, and yellow pages. Now They took thinner paper and print smaller, so we've only got A-L, M-Z and yellow pages.
Normally your number, with full name, title and address shows up in the directory, but you can pay extra money every year for having it not show up. Those numbers are called "secret numbers". Another viennese speciality is that you'll rarely find a company by their company name in the directory. You'll probably find it under the former owner's grandfather's name or something like that. Sometimes we make jokes about the companies, that they don't want to be found.
We have 5 mobile phone networks at the moment, 4 GSM, 1 analog ETACS, will be shut down on February 1st. Thats's a real pity, it's far the cheapest, and the used phones come for about $10 in excellent shape. The STD codes are: analog D-Net 0663 + 6/7 digit number, A1(fomerly E-Net) 0664 + 7-digit-number (owned by the same company, former monopolyst) max. 0676 + 7-digit-number, ONE 0699 + 8-digit-number and TeleRing 0650 + 7-digit-number. Ther were some other networks, for example the A-net, operator-based car phone network, no idea when it was shut down, The B-Net, also car phone, for the STD you had to know where the person wasfor example I think Vienna area was 02225. Then there was the C-Net, cellular car phone network, STD 0663 and a 5-digit number, shut down in 1997.
At least in Vienna we have an area numbering scheme. When you see a number a number you can tell by the first 2 or three digits where in Vienna the subscriber is located, for example numbers starting with 51 are downtown, numberst starting with 2 are somewhere on the end of the world, across the danube. However, this is only practised by Telekom. Alternative companies usually provide numbers starting with 9, In Vienna this would be Priority Telekom with 92, 93?, 94, 96 and 97 numbers spread all over Vienna.