atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Is this normal in the industry ?

To solve the "Great Mystery" most of the techs that did that were used to having 10VAC lamp voltage on the second pair for "Princess" phones and, later, the light in the handset phones. They would make sure no "foreign" voltage could accidentally be applied to the voice circuit by snipping the other leads.

Personally, I always carried some insulating sleeves (Known here abouts as "Spaghetti") to insulate and store unused leads.

I was in the union for many years and I never saw a difference between union or non union 42A terminations. There would be no reason for this to be a union issue.

Rcaman

Them dang basement transformers that no one bothered to unplug, and the owner who didn't know what it was.

I find it amazing how often we run into this. From aux power to 1A2 systems that haven't been in service for 20 years, yet still have the power supply running. A lotta coal is burned to keep those power supplies warm.

I interviewed a potential tech once. He told me he was given a hard time once when as a union employee he didn't take a lunch break when he had a monstrous outage because he wanted to get the customers back up and running.

I would imagine it is that type of stuff that leads to the earlier anti-union comments.

Obviously there are outstanding workers along with horrible workers in unions just like the workers outside of unions.

Absolutely! Sure, I can tell many union horror stories, but, just as many relating to non union work. People are people whether in the union or not.

Western PA is the hotbed of unionism. Because of the coal barons and the steel company owners who put profit ahead of human life, the unions were born to protect human life and make some sort of level playing field when it came to compensation. If you read the history of the early "industrialization" of America, there are absolute barbaric conditions in which people were forced to work. I know, first hand, as my grandfathers endured literal slavery working in mines and mills.

The unions were good. But, as in all things, greed and the lust for power has corrupted everything. I salute my brother union workers, however, I have no tolerance for those hiding behind the union to be lazy, incompetent or just plain malevolent.

All of this can be applied to non union workers as well.

Rcaman

Well put. There is greed and corruption in all walks of life, no one group has a lock on either.

Correct me if I am wrong, aren't the terminals on assuming it was a new jack come already screwed in to its posts to begin with. So chances of a possible short slim no none I would think.

No, these "Bell System" 42A Jacks came with the leads unbridled, meaning, they were loose. This was done so the installer did not have to deal with a cover getting in the way when installing.

The back mounting, with the screws, was mounted to the surface, the JKT or telephone cable attached to the appropriate screws and then the leads were connected. In some instances, the green and yellow leads were connected together to make the ringer work. In other, more rural areas, there might be a ground wire along with the tip and ring for different ringer connections and there were harmonic, synchromonic, and decimonic ringers used as well that, in some areas, required either a tip to yellow or ring to yellow connections. Look Here

Rcaman

I hated them jacks.

Well, lets go back a couple of light years to the non-modular days when the phones had spade ends and the JKT had to be stripped back and wrapped on the screw terminals. Did at least a million in the old hotel/motel days.Then you had the guys ringing up your number to get you with ringing voltage while you were wrapping the wire around the lugs. Ah, those were the days.