The 1A2 systems are before my time, however I own a model 464 and a 564 phone. I keep and collect some of the old stuff I run across. I recently have been thinking about this stuff more (thanks to the posts by rotary500 and the responses by Ed and Bill). I am pretty sure I own a power supply unit that was used for this (it has 24vdc and multiple 10vac outputs on it with flat bakelite fuses). I have never seen the actual KSU though. Just wonder if someone has found a picture on the net (I did a search, but didn't find any pics of the "shoebox"). Also what is the difference between 1A1 and 1A2? If I found a KSU, would the two phones that I own be compatible or were there differences other than the physical looks?

1A1 was an insane bank of relays that covered a 4x8 sheet of plywood for a couple dozen lines.

1A2 used shoebox ksus and 13 slot panels with an interrupter. Much more compact.

Take a look at these sites. Just call me the google maven.

https://209.165.152.119/tel/1a2.html

https://www.ntcp.com/default.html?target=dept_461.html&lang=en-us

Twisted Pair ----

1A2 old? I'm pulling out a 584 panel with ten button sets this weekend. In a floral shop. Want a picture? I'll take a poloriod and pdf it to you, if you want.

1A1 used co power to pull relays to operate hold, etc. 1A2 had power supplies to do it and have lights. Never played with a 464 but have installed literally truck loads of 564 before TT came to town. Then I put in many 2564s. The shoebox you hear about is normally considered an WECO 551 series or an ITT 601. They are both the size of a shoe box, therefore the name. Normally 4 COs and a chance at a ICM.

Let me know if you want that pic.

KLD

The 1A2's I used to install were on 19 inch free standing racks made by Northern Electric (now beter know as Nortel). You could do an entire floor of a building with several businesses on one rack. Just plug in the number of CO cards you need, the intercom paths, power supply, hold relays you need and assorted perriferals, hard wire them to the proper sets.

When they pull the last of all the copper KSUs and replace them with fiber optic VoIP...it would not surprise me if the cut-order phone call was made over a 1A2 6-button set. <snicker>

In all seriousness, they were built like a rock. Pulled one years ago that had been in service at least thirty years with non-solid state 400E line cards - just current sensing relays.

There are a couple of Qwest CO's here that still have and use 1A2 systems in there buildings. I even worked on one since the "young" techs couldn't fix it.

Yeah, those things are like rocks. We have a customer that had one installed litteraly 30 years ago and had NEVER had a service call until last month! Weird and amazing at the same time.....just try and get a customer like that to update to a new system! LOL

Steve

I've been doing a lot of reading here, Bunnie's link and the old posts on this forum. What was the interrupter used for? Was it part of the KSU or a separate device?

It's an internal part of the KSU. The interrupter is a motor-driven lamp flasher. It has cams inside that close various sets of contacts at different rates per second. One was 60 IPM for incoming call flash, 120 IPM (wink) for hold flash, and then another set of contacts that closed one second on, four seconds off for ringing voltage. It is housed in a clear plastic case and plugs into a dedicated connector in the KSU or card rack. Later on, solid state interrupters were developed, but never became as popular as the motorized ones since they lasted almost forever!

From what I've been reading, if you wire the y/s directly to the co line, it will cause the set to ring. Why did the interrupter have a cam for ringing?

The yellow slate was connected to B1/R1 leads from the CO line card out of the KSU . EV do you remember working on diode matrix problems with an office full of 20 button sets ? What a nightmare sometimes .

How about setting up multiple button&buzzer keys on a 20/30 button set .You could spend all day just modifying 10 sets .

Twisted:

Yes, if you wanted a single CO line to ring on a 1A2 station, they you could wire that line directly to the yellow-slate pair of the station cable. But, if you wanted multiple lines to ring at the same set, you had to use the internally-generated ring cycle and voltage. This is because if you tied multiple CO lines to the same ringer, they would be effectively tied together.

Internal ringing also created the flexibility to have various combinations of lines ringing at different stations by using a diode matrix to isolate common ringing for some stations. For example, three lawyers all had their own two lines that rang at their station, but their common receptionist had all six lines set up to ring on that station.

Oh, yes OBTW. I remember many sites like you mentioned. We used to service the Kennedy Center in Washington DC that had hundreds of lines, even more stations and lots of mixed ringing. They had lines coming from cards in multiple closets backfed over house cable, lamp extenders, you name it.

It really got fun when there were transfer keys involved. As if the matrix wasn't already confusing enough!

Yes I worked on the 1a2 at RCA records buildging in Hollywood in the mid 70's. The entire building was 6btn to 30btn keysets . The floor that the lawery's were on was the worst . We would draw names to see who would take the service call or move the phones around . Finally it was just mine and one other tech names in the hat .

You mentioned a transfer key Ed. This was possible on the 1A2 system? Could you actually intercom (dial) directly to another extension? From what I have been reading, you installed buzzers in the phones for intercom but was it private 2-way?

Sure, there were multi-path intercom systems available. The AT&T/Western Electric 6A intercom was huge (as in size; all 23" rack-mounted relays that got bigger by the number of stations) but it still only had two paths. The first was a common path shared by everyone, but once a call was dialed, the parties were shifted to a second private path. Once the private path was in use, the next intercom call was on the public path. A third call attempt became a party line.

This was also when people actually got up from their desks every once in a while as opposed to today! If the intercom paths were busy, people just got up and went to the person they were trying to call!

AT&T/Western Electric came out with an advanced intercom system that was similar to a small PBX that was called "Dialog". It had many talk paths and functioned much like a PBX with built-in lamp flash rates for the 1A2 sets, etc. It even had clear plastic overlays for the faceplates on the phones to provide feature dialing codes. It was pretty sophisticated for it's time. Maybe that's why it didn't last very long.

Tone Commander also came out with the Multi-link intercom system for 1A2 called the ML-8000. With the proper cards, I seem to recall that it could go up to 8 talk paths. It also functioned much like a PBX. All intercom call paths were private. Ringback and busy tones were provided when making calls (this was an option). Once the equipped path capacity was reached, the next call attempt resulted in a busy signal when going off-hook. These things were VERY popular in the DC area through the 1980's.

Both of these systems provided "real" ringing or signaling (repeated) as opposed to the single buzz with earlier intercom systems.

Melco and Valcom had multi-path systems as well, although not quite as sophisticated.

Transfer keys were more for ringing on CO lines. Say for example an executive was going out to lunch, he could turn on his transfer key (a side car toggle switch) and his private line would then ring at the receptionist.

EV, This is a little off subject but did you ever work on the Tele Resources 32 "PBX" ? It came out in the mid 70's and was discontinued by 1981 .

Nope. Never touched PBX's until Mitel SX100/200 in the mid 1980's. All I ever worked on was 1A2, Comkey and electronic key until digital hybrids became the norm.

The analog sx100/200 Mitel's were a rock solid pbx as long as you had enough dtmf receivers and the power supplies did not over heat . I started on the NEC Crossbar 60/120 pbx's .

I still have sx-100 & 200's out there on Nantucket

I think there is still alot around in small motel's . I came across a sx100/200 programming overlay in my garage the other day , along with a tech quick reference handbook . I guess I will keep them .

Speaking about relics, I started on the Vantage system. Was that popular south or was that just a Canadian thing? I never hear anyone talk about them on here even though I still have a few customers using them.

Twisted Pair.....
You for got to add a BLF and a speed dialer for that "new" system.

Oh, how quickly a topic changes! I thought this was about 1A2?

I blame OBTW for getting off topic!! lol, sorry.

In my searches of the phones that I have, I found a 565 set. I have the 564, next trivia question: what was the difference?

Any one that knows the 1A2 better than EV must be older than Mr. Bell himself!

We had 1A Key and 10A1 Key then with line cards called 102 Before 1A key we had something called multi key.

it should be 10A2 not 102

what is a 464? are you talking about a line card, cabinet, i don't remember that one.

BTW, ml8000s were extremely popular in the usaf

Okay, you young wippersnappers! Move over or I'll hit you with my cane !!!

564 had common grounds for lamps 565 had a lead for every function.

More trivia ---- Twisted Pair, how do you get a ten button set to operate off of a 25 pair cable when it takes three pair for each C O button?

KLD

KLD- I tried explaining the 10 button set on 25 pairs to my younger techs...damn near scared them into a new line of work.

Heh? Wat'd ya say?

Man, Ken, we are aging by the minute! The 564/2564's made by ITT stayed with common grounds on lamps all the way to their end even though the Bell companies ditched them for 565/2565's across the board to standardize years earlier.

Really, the only reason for the 565/2565 was to incorporate the modified dial and the extra line cord conductors to support the 4A speakerphone. I think the only reason they separated the grounds on the 565/2565 was just a "why not make use of the extra pairs and stop paying for blown fuses on lamp reversals at the same time"! The 565/2565 had an 18 pair (yes, the yellow/blue and yellow/green pairs were skipped) line cord while the station cables were 25 pair. It didn't make any sense to come up with a 21 pair cable to accommodate the speakerphone, so they went with the obvious solution. I sure used a lot of those violet pairs!

You might be older'n me, but you ain't gonna outwit me on this'un!

By the way, I'll bet that 1A2 you are taking out was on that wall a whole lot longer than anything that replaces it will be! Agree? Shhh: Don't answer in front of the customer.

Now, let's go hit the front porch and take another nap...............


:sleep: :sleep:

txfoneman, this is a pic of the 464 set.


Just a guess, a ten button set only requires pairs for 9 buttons, one being a hold. From what I read; the A control is common grounded with the w/o, you just told me it is possible to have a common on the lights, is this where they are getting the extra conductors to run a 10 button on 25 pair?

Signed; young wippersnapper! :shrug:

By the way KLD,

I hope you are taking a picture of that system before you remove it on the weekend. I still haven't seen what the KSU looks like.

Very close, Twisted, but incorrect. The common control lead (A1) is the orange/white, not white/orange.

Also, Western Electric (AT&T) stopped using common grounds for the lamps on 10/20/30 button sets pretty early-on, but ITT (Cortelco) and Comdial (Stromberg-Carlson) continued to provide a copper strip that tied all of the lamp grounds together. I didn't work with Northern Telecom sets much (Logic 10 and 20), but the wiring was almost identical to Western Electric.

The 10 button phones pretty much used 2 1/2 pairs per line, one for the CO line T/R, one for the lamp (LG/L), and the half-pair for the "A" lead. Only one common lead ("A1") was required regardless of the number of buttons. With this arrangement, there were not many spare pairs to throw around for extra stuff, like transfer keys.

That's when we started stealing those lamp ground leads. It was amazing how much progress you could make by just having one extra single wire available to work with.

Man, you just lost the grand prize, a 2006 Hummer H2 and perfect 21-30 year-old women to fill every seat. You need to be more careful with your answers next time!

I am still impressed that you knew that much about a tried and true, yet dead technology.

If you want to see a 1A2 KSU, I will send you one if you pay for the postage.

Aaahhh, man, I could have used a hummer!!

Do I have the rest of the wiring right or are you going to make me wait for Ken to answer that?

I should take you up on that offer, wire up my 2 old sets to the 1A2 and learn a little something...........like why I'm lucky I got into the business at the point that I did maybe!!

Hummer, hummer? I thought were taking about old phone systems not well ah, the ah ... oh never mind, get your minds out of the gutter and tell them how much money you made on replacing burned out fuses and burned out bulbs in the keys, the clear plastic line buttons, not the piano keys.

How many of you could make an a lead on a s/l phone without looking at the wiring diagram in the box, are you that good?

True story, little old lady came in with her favorite old AT&T desk phone that didn't ring any longer and just had to replace one slate wire to go Harrring, harrrring, harrrrring.

I think you should wire a 20 station Stromberg Carlson while you are drinking and posting on Saturday.

And do you remember that GTE used similar equipment that they classified 10A2, not 1A2.

Remember what confidencers are and who was the ONE company that actually made one that worked.

WOW!!!! Now I really feel old! I started with uncle sam doing 1A1 key systems. There were just a couple of things that you didn't loose. Your butt, telephone test set and your wire wrap tool. All in that order. I thought that Christmas came when they gave us the "zip" gun. Whew...old age. I wish I had .10 for every lamp I changed. I sure changed a lot of them on the 5, 10 and 20 button sets. RBF, if you want to really blow them away, explain the diode matrix ringing to them! LOL

What is a confidencer?

I was doing some reading on the diode matrix on some old posts here. Sounds like it was a lot of fun when you were dealing with 60 phones and 10 lines all ringing differently. Was this matrix done right on a 66 block?

EV, You are correct about those ring tranfer switches causing diode matrix ringing nightmares . If not properly installed key phones that did not share the same key lines but had a transfer switch connected to the bell in thier phone would cause the bell to ring but no key lines would light up and flash . One of the early causes of phantom ringing on key sets . Also why did some companys take the hundred pair cable on the 1a2 call commander phones and break them out into 5 amphenol connectors ? There must of been a reason !

OBTW:

Early large key sets, such as call directors, had these "five-finger" 100 pair cables that were used to actually plug directly into the key strips in the phone. The line cord was just a male to female five-finger cable. I guess this was an effort to reduce manufacturing expense and complexity.

Twisted:

I almost forgot, yes a diode matrix could be done using a standard 66 block, but Western Electric made a special block for this purpose. It consisted of five vertical rows of clips and five horizontal rows. I diode was then punched down at the desired cross points to activate the ringing for that line. These blocks could be daisy-chained to accommodate any number of lines and stations.

twisted... we did them on bix

100 pair cable for the call directors & 30 ,60 ,90 & 120 line bucket ,s wired up like 5 6 button phones & had plenty of spares, lota fun looking for a bad diode out of 100 line console not ringing or dinging

Telemarv:
That supprises me that you did them on BIX. The reason I say that; because I have been in lots of phone rooms that had the remnants of 1A1 & 1A2 and there's always walls of 66 blocks. I didn't realize we were using BIX here in the great white north that long.

Ed:
They made a category for 1A2 with you as the moderator :rofl: Sucks to be you!!

Next trivia question; where did the A1 control lead term come from? Or for that matter, 1A1, 1A2? I assume that LG came from "lamp ground?"

Simon:

The A lead is just a ground that is switched by the hookswitch and hold button inside the set. I guess they just needed two terms for either end of what is effectively a loop.

1A1 and 1A2, or GTE's 10A2 were just nomenclature for the family of hardware, just like 5ESS. 1A1 was the first generation of modular key systems made by Western Electric and when a major change came about (plug-in cards instead of hard wired KTU's(relay units)), it became 1A2. 5ESS is simply the fifth generation of AT&T's electronic switching system, the first one obviously being 1. By the way, there are still plenty of #1ESS switches in use (actually 1A's) and 4's in North America.

Oh, and yes, LG is Lamp Ground. Ding ding ding, tell him what he won, Johnny!

We had modified Logic 20s with non locking keys and a 20 button addon and the set was called a logic 40 that would work on a 50 pair cable almost 40 lines and you could add to each 40 button set another 20 button module. There was a limit how many you could put on. There was only one talk pair for all the lines and 1 A lead and 1 lamp lead for each line and the grounds were commoned up. It was sort of a concentrator It saved a lot on cabling.

Okay, kids, get to your seats and open your books to page 7. This class is entitled "Telecomm 101".

Three pair per line

Pair 1 --- Tip and Ring --- Talk Path.
Pair 2 --- A and A1 --- Battery and ground to operate relays (Hold, etc.)
Pair 3 --- Lamp and Lamp Ground ---- Lights!

Just Bill can tell you about the Central Office Toll / inter-office circuits ---- relays IDed by letters. The "A" refers to the action it controls by the "A" relay. "E&M" circuits (EAR & MOUTH) sent and received battery and ground to control the particular operation. Just like ground start trunking.

Next week we will cover "Wink" and how it starts (play on words, wouldn't you say?) :read:

Have a nice recess, class dismissed.


KLD

Thanks a lot guys for the lessons on the old 1A stuff. I never did much work with them but did replace many of them with EKT's I have an older friend that still has tons of this stuff in his now closed shop. He repaired AT&T systems for decades and taught me all I know about the 1A2 and Merlins

Yeah, it is kind of cool learning how this old stuff worked. It looked scarey, but in all fact, it was kind of simple technology. I just wish I could impress someone now with my new found knowledge! Maybe.....it's like Ed said, this stuff is making a bit of a come back.

Ok, I learned on a 10 button set they still used a 25pair line cord. What did they do with the 20 and up sets? Two 25pair cords?

They used a common ground on the A lead, so you only needed one wire instead of two.

Twisted:

20 button sets had a 50 pair line cord and 30 button sets had 75 pair. Call Directors had 100 pair, but it was five 20 pair binders instead of the traditional four 25 pair binders. Same 25 pair connectors, just no violet pairs.

Hey, Ed, are we having fun yet?

KLD

Anyone remeber the old rotary dial auotodialers you could connect to a 1a2 key telephone . They looked like a old rolodex file and the numbers were stored on magnectic tape ?

I have seen them only in books and have never worked with them. I bought something similar to that that I got at a yard sale back in the 1970's. It used a continous mylar loop with little dots you filled in with pencil for each phone number. You slid the pointer on the cover to the appropriate entry and pushed the start button. The sheet moved across a set of contacts which picked up the number of dots you filled in for each number creating rotary dial pulses. It actually worked, but it was a piece of junk! I guess it was technology from the 1960's or so.

How about tape readers for the teletypes? Ok I know it has nothing to do with 1A2, just checking out Ed's age factor.

The 1a2 key phones I disliked working on the most were the Stromberg/Carlson models . The line buttons would break/stick , the faceplate would never stay on correctly , the 25 pair cable would pull loose from the phonebase housing and if you dropped one the bell would jam first time every time . Anyone else have one model they thought was junk ?

I do agree with you on that. S/C (Comdial) sets were the most problematic of all brands. The thing I disliked most was their new electronic dial that wired completely differently than any other brands. And those damned push-on spade tip connectors on everything!

Now if you want a truly ugly 1A2 phone series, then Automatic Electric (GTE) phones win hands-down.

Bill, yes, I have used a teletype with the paper tape reader. It was during my junior year in high school in 1977 for a computer class. The mainframe was at the school on the other side of town. They had NJ Bell run a 1,200 BAUD point-to-point data circuit to our "computer room". We wrote our programs using BASIC language and stored them on tape. The bigger your roll of tape, the more elaborate your program was. Wow, how times have changed. There, I said it. Now you can guess at my age!

:dance:

Re-perferator and all ---- yep, and with radio relay it could "burst" allowing for code privacy.

How abnout the 1A2 auto-dialer that looked like a square credit card machine and used credit card like punch cards --- one for each number. Insert it , go off hook, and punch the start button. The card would rise up the slot and dial the number. That's how I used to order my supplies from SWBT and WE.

KLD

And they thought I was old! Mr. KLD, you have just admitted that you are older than I am. The defense rests. Your witness, Mike?

confidencer was a handset microphone that cut out background noise. screw off regular transmitter, screw on confidencer. kind of a small rim around it keeping out background noise.

the matrix could be "locally" made on the 66 block or i think it was a western electric product pre-made.

Okay, Twisted Pair, I sent you a set of pictures via e-mail. I'm too dumb to figure out how to get them posted here.

An ITT 512 has card slots for up to 13 COs. Their shoebox (601) was good for 4 from the factory but I have had it support more with some "creative" wiring. Also dial intercoms. The WECO 551 series wasn't as flexible.

Any questions, let me know.

KLD

OOOOPs, EV --- Ed --- you know, that old man. I probably have to plead guilty to that one --- just survived longer than most.

Okay, roll me out to the sunny side of the porch so I can say "Good nnnnn---------- "

Hey, Ken. The ITT601 was ready to go for five lines AND they had a plug-in 10-station intercom card that plugged in the bottom slot. All that was needed was the appropriate number of line cards. Of course, if Touch Tone intercom was desired, a piggyback card was required. The 601 had all of the regular power connections available if you wanted to use an external intercom, like a Melco or Tone Commander unit.

From KLD:
Thanks KLD for the pics!

I'm going to attempt to post the 2nd one here (the one without your customers mug shot)

Why do they call the 1A2 a "shoebox" KSU?
It's pretty large and I take it that the cover is removed for the pic. With the cover on it would be even larger.

This one is not a "shoebox" --- The WECO 551s and ITT 601s were much smaller --- about the size of a shoe box thereby the name.

This one is the next size up --- I'll measure it and give you the exact size. And, YES, the cover was big enough to give your golden retriever a bath in.

KLD

And, Ed, once again you prove that I AM the older, Oldhiemers and all --- roll me back out into the sun, please :bow:

KLD

:shhh: Ken I remember ordering supplies with the card dialers..don't tell Ed :shhh:

At least when we installed 1a2 for customers we did not have to answer all those inane questions about Caller ID .

So in that picture; what is located right beside the power supply on the left side?

It appears to be an 89b bracket and a transformer . If I had to guess ! Which this is only a guess !

I'm back and I heard you guys talking about me. The shadow knows.

On ITT 512 KSU's, there was a small fuse panel mounted to the left of the power supply on the mounting rails. It utilized flat fuses. I don't believe that any other manufacturer did this, except possibly Stromberg-Carlson, so I am pretty sure it's an ITT.

Now as for that thing to the left of the KSU itself, your guess is as good as mine!

It looked like a fuse panel, that supprised me though, the power supply also has flat fuses on it (I have one). ITT must have liked the extra protection?

Nice Avatar Simon! That's an oldie but goodie!

Yes, it is a supplemental fuse panel, but not like what you would think, as in secondary surge protection. It just was used to split out the high-amperage outputs of the power supply into groups of line card slots.

The 512 KSU that ITT made was a variation of a Western Electric 584 panel on a rack with a cover. It wasn't truly a 584 panel though, because 584's had lots of fuses to localize power distribution to the individual cards or groups of cards. While the 512 was still a 13-line KSU, it lacked this individual localized fusing of high-current outputs, like lamp power.

Even with small phone stuff, those 1A2 power supplies threw out a lot of amperage, sometimes 10 amps. A short under a single 10 amp fuse would have certainly caused a risk of fire. I mean, 18 gauge wire is rated to carry that amperage, but when you get down to 26 gauge line cord conductors, it could get ugly.

Those fuses were just there to break the 10 amp output into more managable 2.5 amp circuits. I am sure it was a UL/CSA requirement.

Thanks Ed, I knew you would appreciate it! I have had a renewed interest in the old stuff and I pulled out my old sets including an old 3 slot payphone and started restoring. I did a search for some old logos to install in the dial and found that.

I use to work for a company that did alot of the powered paging speaker systems. We use to find those old power supplies and use them for the speakers. You're right, they are power houses. Before we started fusing individual lines, I had seen twisted pair melted into a single conductor and that 10 amp fuse never blew.

Sorry, guys, been off the board a couple of nights. Yes, Ed called it. If you look "under" the power supply you'll see where the amp cables plugged in to go to the 66 blocks for fan out.
This one had an exterior mounted Tone Commander 1900 series ICM and all ten button sets, including three wall sets.

And, OBTW is so right ---- NO CID>

KLD

A confidencer is a device which screwed onto a g-series handset which supposedly helped prevent your voice from traveling through your office area.

I have loads of 1a2 equipment, touchamatic dialers, 4a speakerphones, if anyone is interested.
mm

Ahh the good ol days, before IP, patches, patches, patches. I think the Confidencer was the secure handset transmitter used to prevent the Russians from listening in on the old 1a2 key stuff. Hey I use to work on the 1a1 w/ the old 207c intercom wipers and cleaning carbon relays all day. 1a2 was high tech, still love that a-lead and man cave stuff. Still have the 10v lamps, #1 troubleshooting tool back then, besides a screw driver.

that's so true. Put a lamp in the lamp lead at the 66 block, short the a-a1 to see if you were good out of the key system, also good when you weren't getting the intercom ring on buzzers, just put a lamp on the buzzer lead, same with testing button and buzzer.. The good ol' days??

GOOD OLD DAYS?????


Hell folks I still have a dozen of the babies in service now!!

Heck of alot easier to troubleshoot than the digital stuff or the hybrids!!

No program snaffues...........either the circuit is there.....or isn't!

Scary part is YES I can wire 20 buttons in my sleep w/o a manual!!


OK I'm WAY to young for this!!!


Dave

OH YEAH


Forgot to ask. (maybe i'm not so young)

How many have worked on the "gray whales"??


Dave

grey whales with the Tie 10S phone systems. it came equipped with a choice of 1,2 or 3 intercom paths, if you needed more CO lines, you could actually re-use all of the intercom paths and rewire the KSU for the additional lines required. system was extremely flexible and one of the first that I am aware of that did handsfree talkback. used a 50 pair cable and god forbid you removed the one lamp ground wire for the set. must be an east coast thing.

I thought the confidencer was the other way around, you placed one in the handset to cutout the background noise (ideal for motor shops)

anyone remember when 25 pair cable had a spare pair just for emergencies. what was the color? How about having to use a 4 x 8 5/8" piece of plywood just to mount all the 66 blocks that you needed for the 1A2 equipment and spending a week cutting down all those 25 pairs starting from the violet-slate pair up. (thats right, v/sl not purple grey, as my young techs refer to it.)

Sorry to say, but I thought the most valuable tool back them was a paper clip. found many uses for it.
ah, those were the days when a analog volt meter really meant something.
TJ

Yeah, my father's real estate office in New Jersey bought one of those systems in 1975. If I recall correctly, didn't it have an interrupter that was just a card with a bunch of different relays clicking all the time? And wasn't there a 50 pair cable with a special connector that plugged into the bottom of the KSU that fed the MDF blocks? And weren't intercom codes determined by picking one wire from each tens group and the other from the second digits, like a matrix?

The spare pair was white/red.

Paper clips; sure handy for taking off rotary dial wheels and number card covers. Personally, I just used a 5" piece of one-pair drop wire with about 1/2" stripped on one end. On the other end, I bent a tiny hook in the wire to be used as a probe-pic (nose picker).

One of the guys at my dad's work was a Bell tech for 18 years. He told me how with 1A2, it was a lot easier to troubleshoot

You just can't stump Ed! He must have been doing telecom in grade 3.

I think the spare was only in odd pic. I don't remember the color code we know now as having a spare, and I spliced a lot of it.

Uh, I hate to say it but I did watch the guy from UTS-Carolina Telephone replace the ringer coil in the green rotary dial phone in my parent's bedroom when I was seven. I think that would have actually been the second grade. I did have to ask him why it required four wires since only three came in through the line cord. He didn't have an answer, or at least one that he thought I would understand at that age. Of course that was back in the days where phones were rented, the phone company repaired them, and it was free.

Hey Bill, I saw the white/red pair a lot in old 25 pair pole terminals with lead stubs when doing splice repairs. I have seen a white/red AND a white/black spare pair in T-screened OSP cable recently, in fact we just installed about a mile of it.

I also still see this pair in some of the really old, as in 1950-1965 inside cable where it was available in brown or beige jacket and solid colors like PIC.

I am pretty sure that once band marking for pair identification became the norm in the mid 1960's for inside wiring, the spare pair went away.

Well maybe you are older than me Ed. Now that you mention it, I do kind of remember a spare in the lead terminal stubs. I never saw it in my splicing days in the cable its self and spliced very little of the odd count pic. Thanks for the info, one of these days we're going to stump ya.

Bill: I did outside plant in the Army in 1978, so I got a lot of exposure to old pole terminals. What I always couldn't understand was that the spare pair was there in the stub, but the terminal still only had 25 pairs and was epoxy-sealed. Where did that extra pair go?

As for the T-screened cable, the extra pairs are provided (one for each 25 pair binder) to provide a talk pair outside of the screened (shield) compartment.

Now, the 26th pair in inside wiring came in handy every once in a while for that fax line when you were afraid to touch that screw-terminal block that had half a dozen two-line phones in five different offices working from it. That nice rolled-up pair sure looked nice.

Don't know where I was when they first started the T-cables, most all the toll was south about 90 miles and I was in maintaince at that time, so other than hearing about it I never worked on any. If I've ever seen a spare in a house cable I don't remember it. Ed, I found two book of the 3 volume set of my old 1A2 manuals, missing the com key stuff, so now maybe from time to time I can look smart too. :toast:

We had another lead on the ringers maybe besides the four. It was used sometimes. What was it for ED?

Oh, good Lord Bob! You guys are making me look old. If you are referring to the blue lead, I am pretty sure it had to do with frequency-selective ringing when used with the appropriate capacitor or maybe tip party/ring party identification. I know it was something like that, but I can't say for sure because it was always taped and stored in any sets I worked on.

Oh, and Bill, I have the Volume 3 (Comkey) manual if you want to borrow it.

Ed,
Kadoos... on the red/white pair.
and yes you are correct about the relays on the interruptor. They had a distinct pattern, you could identify that system unseen from 20 feet away. intercoms were determined by picking tens from one lead and ones on the other.
the tie system even had different taps on the lamp power resistors so that if you added more extensions and the lamps were starting to dim, you just changed the wire tap setting to make them brighter.
do you think it's time to start telling the young pups about frequency selective ringing, party lines and 4 digit dialing?
Tj

Click, click.......click, click, click........click! We could hear it through the floor into the offices above. I knew I was right about the ones and tens because I did a lot of moves and it wasn't one of those deals where you could use a bridging adapter! How about all of those pink/green, dark brown/light brown pairs in the sets? And people thought American 1A2 was complex! Four-wire 1A2 with a completely different color code in the line cord. Now there's a recipe for disaster.

No need to bring up the 4-digit dialing in step offices or frequency-selective ringing for the yung-uns. They might equate that to static vs. dynamic IP addresses!

Quote:
how all of those pink/green, dark brown/light brown pairs in the sets? And people thought American 1A2 was complex!

they never bothered me. The schematics in those days were so detailed, If you knew how to use a meter, it was a pleasure to work on those phones. no surprises.
I saw a lot of those types of color codes on the 50 pair Iwatsu phones. i remember having an issue with the amphenols if they came loose. the return ground for the phone set was in the violet pairs and if the amphenol wasn't screwed tight, it caused all types of problems.
What was the name of that interconnect box that was mandated on all interconnect installations by Ma Bell to isolate their wiring from ours?
TJ

anybody know how 1A2 is used for 911 systems, even today? did a shadow day at my city hall and the IT/phone/audio guy told me that the 911 dispatch still uses some pieces of 1A2 equipment.

Your good Ed we used it for ANI on party lines when both phones were on the same pair.

Jeff: Much of the earlier 911 equipment had the same look and feel of 1A2 mixed with Comkey. The reality is that answering the phone calls in a 911 center can be done from any type of phone. It's the caller information that appears on the operator's computer monitor that really does the work.

Many dispatch centers used (and continue to use) 1A2 consoles manufactured by Plant Equipment, Inc. Their stuff was primarily designed for this type of application and had more flexibility, like conference capabilities.

Most 911 centers now are 100% integrated using a CTI-type package. Still, there are probably many small towns with a couple of rotary-dial 1A2 sets doing a fine job.

I worked Step and GTD-5 switchrooms from 81-88ish, and most of the cable used inside had a spare pair. They needed every pair of every cable to work, when you hook up a 100-line linefinder or connector group you want all 100 lines good, so that spare came in handy.

And when I went outside to OSP Construction Splicing from 88-93 all the old paper cable had a spare pair for every 100-pair binder - the one red-blue pair. And we had Pulp and Single-wrap "Firecracker Paper" to deal with - just breathe on it wrong, and it would unravel and make a shiner.

On PIC cables it varied, but you'd get one spare pair for every 300 to 600 pair, depending on what they felt like tossing in. They didn't give you one per hundred group, because the incidence of bad pairs went down a lot with plastic insulation.

When you got into customer premises wiring, that's where they stopped supplying spare pairs. - it was never loaded 100% and always easy enough to just swing the line to an extra pair, and tag the bad pair at each end.

--<< Bruce >>--

I never thought I would ever hear someone bring up a diode matrix again. I cut my teeth on 1A2 just before it became obsolete and we started installing the Tie Econkey TCX 128 systems like crazy. Remember the old silent 700 with the thermal paper?

The journeyman I worked with the most taught me a great way to set up a diode matrix on 66 blocks that was easily customized. Unfortunately I only had a couple instances to use it before it became obsolete. Man, did I think I was hot stuff once I mastered that!! I think that was around 1982-1984 time frame. Oh for the old days when all you had to ask the customer was how many phone do you want to ring.

Re confidencers. It wasn't Walker, which most would assume, I found an UNOPENED kit at work. I forget the name, Roanwell? Something like that. I never could commit the 'flyer' leads for 10-button phones to memory so, to this day I have several ITT 501 and 512 Practices. For you young'uns, the translation for 'Practice' is 'Installtion manual'. Speaking of Practices, when are the doctors and lawyers gonna get it right. (I know, that's an OOLLDD joke)

OOPs, forgot to define confidencer. You unscrewed the transmitter cover on the hanset and discarded it and the transmitter. Then you dropped this special little assembly into/onto the handset in place of the transmitter and screwed down the supplied retaining ring. WALA, transmitted noise was greatly reduced and you could talk veerryy quietly and still be heard easily at the other end, hence the term 'confidencer'. If you can imagine the pick-up field arond the mouthpiece of a handset, a standard field is a cone about 160 degrees, coming straight out of moutpiece. Confidencer tightened the cone to about 70 degrees. Handset transmitter became very directional. Could not let handset slip below mouth or you could not be heard.

Somebody asked what was put between CPE and Telco in the early days. The generic term was 'coupler', supposed to protect Telco from the strange and wonderous voltages that CPE worked on. One common unit was an STCQX that put out grounded ring. Without the ringer card, you could 'option' it for a dry contact closure, I think that was an RDMZR. There were also coupler 'racks that could slot 10 or 20 coupler cards. And then there were the 'recorder couplers' RDL, B/S # KS19522, if I remember correctly. And if you were building and selling telephone answering machines,(Code-A-Phone, Phone Mate, etc) you could sell it with an APCM installed, then the customer did'nt have to have a coupler. APCM translated as Authorized Protective Connecting Module, Or, Almost Perfect Control Of Manufacturers. (Yes, there were some HARD feelings in the early '80's)
Now the BIG question! What was the CARTER DECISION and what did it cause, in the long run?
John C
Are we having fun yet?

Ah, John. You must be referring to the Carterphone. This was a speakerphone unit that was self-contained but it connected to the network through a cradle that held the telco-owned phone handset. It wasn't legal to physically wire CPE to the network, so this speakerphone was acoustically-coupled to the standard phone.

Bell companies tried to argue that this was an unauthorized attachment, just like the old vinyl covers for the phone books full of funeral home, gas station and fuel oil company ads, but the court threw it out. This led to a ruling that allowed customers to physically wire privately-owned equipment to the network (through a registered jack and appropriate coupler). Am I on the right track?

Am I right? What do I win? I'll take one of those nice Sundance Communications shirts.

On the other subject about the couplers to "protect the network", they were a true PIA since they were chock full of fuses with plain stupid ratings. A simple slip with a butt set resulted in a call to the telco's repair service. God forbid we go into their coupler (I think it was called a registered coupler) to replace a fuse. To make matters worse, I swear that the monthly rental for these things made it difficult to justify customers buying their own systems.

The telcos protected themselves by using 74- type fuses so they could tell if "the enemy" replaced them. Back then, you couldn't buy these fuses on the private market. They were Bell-controlled and only made by Western Electric. The truly weird ones had colored-tips like red/white that represented some crazy amperage, like .0075 amps! (No corrections needed; it's just an exaggeration).

I will never forget when I was a Jeff Moss type of guy, helping out at my dad's real estate office and trying to learn. I decided to clean up some of the sloppy workmanship in the telco's building entrance terminal. I was using simple scrap pieces of jumper wire off the floor to lace up the mess a little bit. I went to cut the ends from my tie wire and accidentally clipped the T/R of the company's second line. I quickly twisted the pairs back together (and learned about ringing voltage), but by then, I had blown the talk battery fuse in the "coupler". For two days, the busiest real estate office in town operated on one line since NJ Bell wasn't about to come running for one of "those" customers!

I hate to think of how these things did after thunderstorms with sensitivity like that.

Well Ed, I can't say I did anything like that...
but thanks for using me in your post

Ed, you win! Let's see, how about a Bronx cheer? Nah, that's not cool, how about an ATTA BOY. Seriously, I wonder, If the Carter decision had never happened, would this web site exhist, and what would all of the participants be doing?

Who is Judge Green, and what did he do for us?

John C
Are we having fun yet?

John, I recall that there was also some controversy over an articulating arm that attached to candlestick phones. It was designed to permit it to be used without having to hold both the base and receiver. I think that Bell tried to fight that as well, and I think they actually won. OH, and NO, I wasn't alive when this was happening!

There's no doubt that the Carter decision had a dramatic impact on this industry.

As far as Judge Greene goes, he approved the decree that rusulted in the 1984 divestiture of AT&T and The Bell System. I think his intentions were good, and they helped a lot of us, but the decree that he signed was a little too open-ended for it to truly benefit the general public.

The only thing I can say about the breakup of AT&T is. The government had a clause that basically said, everyone but us. So that right there tells me they knew it wasn't the best idea. I do believe technology has gone farther faster due to the breakup though. That opinion and a buck won't get ya much. I'd forgotten all about the Carterphone, sure glad these "old" guys keep us informed as to what went on.
Bill

See the thread on the acceptance of poor quality.

What Judge Green did was take away end to end responsibility. Without that end to end responsibility, once I cleared my machine it was "Not My Problem!" Not only was I not expected to troubleshoot all originating troubles, I was not allowed to troubleshoot once it proved out of my turf. Since no one was responsible for end to end, it fell upon the subscriber to do his own troubleshooting. Which they could not. So they simply accepted poor quality.

The "Hush-a-Phone" was another one of those devices that AT&T tried to kill.

https://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1222.htm

Ed, I recall seeing a comment about the articulated arm someplace. I'm thinking on Sandman's site, or maybe in one of his catalogs.
Not that it was new, the railroads were using it by the 20's in their dispatch offices. NO, I wasn't there, model railroading, specifically Trolley Cars and Interurbans, is one of my hobbies. To model something, you have to have a 'handle' on the real thing. Funny, in the DC area while the 'wise' city fathers were doing away with public transportation in the form of trolleys, they were planning the subway system! Nothing but an underground trolley. What goes around comes around. If you don't remember history, you're bound to repeat it. I'm just full of cliches or something today.
John C Are we having fun yet?