atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems 1A2 and Comkey Telephones & Systems Interesting service call today.

Joe, everything appeared to be soldered but I didn't explore it too much on the back side.

Joe -

As I recall, everything was either soldered or wirewrapped.

Sam

Wow, the craftsmanship of that thing is amazing. I doubt that even if someone was willing to pay what something like that would be worth, that it could not be done anymore (outside of collectors and enthusiasts, of course).

I wish that we as a nation/society could manufacture things of that nature again.

Joe

Any of you that remember the USS New Jersey that blew a Turret up in the '80's(?)? You know why they replaced the turret with a missile emplacement? The U.S. can no longer make the Ring Gear that allowed the turret to turn! The old one was damaged beyond repair. It was poured as 1 piece of Steel and then final-machined on some sort of lathe. I've never seen a Missouri-Class battleship up close, but I'd guess that turret is bigger than a small house. Making that gear 40(?) feet in diameter! Heck, the place they made those ring gears is a housing development now, I'm told.

Joe -

When I worked Transmission (during the dot-comm era) every T-3 Mux had to be wirewrapped. That's two 28 pair 22 AWG cables. We did nice work with it, if I do say so myself.

As far as soldering - that's one of the classes I teach at the IBEW apprentice school - because no one knows how to do it anymore. It's just a damn shame.

As far as the loss of manufacturing.....Don't get me started. I'm sick over it. I had hoped that maybe the earthquakes in China and the tsunamis in Japan might convince some our corporations to move some of the manufacturing back home, but apparently not.

Sam

That system must consume quite a bit of electricity. Did the owner work for the Bell System :confused:

More to the point, did he/she work for the serving power company!

They use very little power when idle, unlike modern systems, which are always "on."

Exactly, Arthur. This machine was powered by a fairly small power supply that was similar to one that would power a typical 1A2 system. When idle, as in no calls in progress, there really isn't any power consumption to speak of with such system architecture.

Hi Sam

Soldering is one thing that I can do really well. When I was a kid, I cut my teeth on heathkit, then when I was in my 30's, I hand built AM bcb receivers with point to point soldered connections, using NOS IF coils and vacuum tubes. When the IF coils became unobtainable, I spent way too much money on an old NOS coil winder by some cash register company (forget the name), had to improve it by having a machinist install bearings and make me a truly straight winding shaft, and made hand wound IF coils on lucite dowel stock. I lost interest when I could no longer buy the nitrocellulose lacqure candyapple paint for the chassis, and the tubes became a small investment unto themselves. (I used "G" style tubes.)

Now as far as wirewrapping, I am terrible at that. I have had nobody to teach me the correct methods of making a decent wire wrap connection.

Joe