sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information found in the telco closet

You guys are my heroes.

No - this was the MPOE for a multi-building hospital campus. No paging gear anywhere to be found.

Worry? You're not posting from hospice, I hope... No Arthur, I'm extremely grateful like there are guys like you still out there and sharing your increasingly rare knowledge - and the craft that goes with all that experience.

I once read about a foreign culture (specifics escape me) who believed in two deaths - first the death of the individual, then a second death with the passing of those who knew and remembered that individual. One of my great fears is that our internet-addicted culture is going to lose a vast amount of its richness over a relatively short period and leave us with a bunch of narcissistic, useless... well anyway, I'm sure you catch my drift.

The comedian Louis CK has a bit about that - he asks the crowd if everything went completely in the shitter tomorrow, how long would it be before you'd managed to build yourself a working cellphone?

By the way, the building I found this in is less than fifteen years old and this was the only loose electronic component to be found. I snapped a picture because it struck me as odd - as if this was the one spare part that you'd want in the event of an emergency or something.

Mine too. I love lurking in here, reading old threads... I just finished reading this one with a combination of fascination and awe. I hope when I've been out here as long as some of these cats, I have a thing or two to put in the mix.

Anyway, always fun to learn something... now I can spend the rest of the evening reading about bipolar junction transistors.

I was so happy I had completely forgotten about those along with steppers, x-bars, 1A1 and such.

You've reminded my how old I am.

True story:

Back in the mid 70s, I was working for Mother and I had the dubious distinction of traveling between independent telephone companies to work on N screen and T-1 circuits. Western PA, at one time, had one of the highest concentrations of independent telephones companies in the U.S.

One of those companies was in the middle of replacing their old stepper with a "brandy new" Northern crossbar. Now this CO was way down in the south western part of PA. ALL of the switchmen and central office personnel worked farms. I went there to repair a T-1 that served as a tie for the local power company.

So, I walk in the co and I see all these farmers in bib overalls, standing on ladders, the stench of pig and cow manure with a slight wiff of rotting mash wafting through the air. There, on the table are a box of wire relays that, for a lack of a better description, were yanked out by the roots. They were all "A" pulsing relays. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Here's the picture: Big guy, bib overalls, a soldering iron the size of a baseball bat with a chisel point about an inch wide, rolls of solid core solder about 1/4" thick and burning wire insulation mixing with the other cocktail of barnyard fragrances. I asked the co foreman what happened? He said "Well....the Northern installation crew left for the weekend and we thought we would fire this-here new fangled cross bar up on this exchange. But, after a few hundred calls, the contacts on the A pulsing relays weld together tighter than two coats of paint. So we are replacing the relays." I said "I have two words for you....Spark Quenchers. They are most likely here, somewhere, and the Northers guys didn't get to soldering them on yet."

He poked through the mounds of boxes and misc material and, there, in a box marked "Spark Quenchers" were the spark quenchers. I also introduced them to an electric wire wrapper and a Weller Marksman soldering iron.

Rcaman