Telephone junction block

I have somewhere between 6 and 10 phones plugged in at any given time. Only 2 ring, a legacy of the old "illegal phone" days when Ma Bell would look for ringers. Everyone knew you disconnected the bell on your "illegal phones". I only have one phone that is not W/E.

Reply to
gfretwell
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Now THAT's a funny reminder!! The whole TELCO industry had the entire world believing that they could tell how many phones you had.... LMMFAO!!!

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Reply to
Steve Barker DLT

Well, they probably COULD have, if they wanted to have a guy measure the draw on the local loop when it rang, but it is highly unlikely they would ever bother, unless the Phone Police thought you were a scammer for other reasons.

And don't forget- pre '73, it was hard to even BUY a non Ma Bell phone, for most people. It was simply a non-issue. When Ma abandoned all the old rental phones in place a few years ago, I was hoping more would show up at garage sales, but they are few and far between, the last few years. Most of my WE collection is starting to be early 70s or older on the internals, so they are starting to go flakey on me. (What modern phone will go 40 years?)

-- aem sends...

Reply to
aemeijers

They could tell how many ringers you had connected. We just disconnected the bell on our stolen phones, they were all Bell System property in those days. You could buy Stromberg Carlson phones in the secondary market and there were some euro phones out there that would work but all W/E phones were lost or stolen. A lot simply got "lost" (not recovered on a disconnect order). That was when it was good to know a phone guy. I knew several.

Reply to
gfretwell

When they would check it is if you had a trouble call on the line. They knew what is was supposed to be and they would test to see if that was right. It gives you a real good idea if the wire is laying in a puddle or something.

Reply to
gfretwell

Reply to
Frank Warner

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