Cell phone will not work, reliably, for voice. But text messaging works even under worst conditions. Too many Americans, because they don't use text messaging, do not understand why you set and periodically text message - because it is the only reliable mobile communication method during outages and crisis.
OK everyone. Here's where I am so far. I didn't think I'd get any response! I'm glad to see there is so much knowledge out there.
Bottom line is that I got the original phone working and now it dials out fine. The next to the bottom line is that I don't know what I did. The new Radio Shack phone still doesn't dial out on tone, but it works OK on pulse.
I had already disconnected all the other devices in my house and I'm pretty sure I reversed the correct wires. Last night the old phone wouldn't dial out. Today I repeated all my efforts and the phone worked! I assume there was a bad connection somewhere or maybe a nicked wire or something. I don't know that I'll ever find the precise problem.
I checked outside my 30-year-old house. There is an old junction box; no modern plugs! It was getting dark so I just took a wrench and tightened the nuts. Each nut tightened a little and I could see some green corrosion on most of the metal parts. Next time the phone doesn't work, I'll do a thorough cleaning of this box.
I tried the new Radio Shack phone with spade lugs at the junction box, and the tone dial still doesn't work. I'll try it at a neighbor's house when I get a chance.
For the record, the old phone is from Western Electric and the date on its base is 11/80. There is a sticker on the bottom certifying that it was properly sold (to me I guess, but I don't remember) on such-and-such a date, but the date is unreadable.
The new Radio Shack phone cost $11. When you figure that Radio Shack had to make a profit on it, the packaging had to be paid for, and it had to be shipped from China; there can't be much quality to the guts inside.
This brings up the issue of what the "phone company" used to be. If you're old enough to remember it, then you know. The youngsters wouldn't believe it anyway.
I remember in the early '60's touring a central office. I do remember banks of batteries waiting for the day they'd power the system. Even then, there was a crew of old timers who communicated with these batteries and kept them charged. I doubt such skills exist today.
Lastly, when the earthquake comes, (and it will), if we lose power, it will be out for months. During that time wouldn't it be silly to have a live phone line into the house and not be able to use it because I didn't have a phone that didn't need AC power?
I forget the name the gentleman called me, but it's a name his wife might call him if he gets his family in that situation. A neighbor of mine took some courses in emergency civilian response. They warned the class about how many people would get themselves into situations from which they would have to be rescued. I was afraid the warning was exaggerated, but that cellphone comment removes my doubt.
Thanks everyone. I'll be back if the phone acts up again.
RC
installations. Older ones just have a junction box with a
powerCordless phones always require outside power.
usually the wires connected to the center 2 pins of the phone
What a child!
I think these are the most reliable too, but feel compelled to give one opposite example. AFter the World Trade Center was destroyed in
2001, much/most landline phone usage was impossible in NYC, but cell phones continued to work, well in most cases.I wasn't in NYC that day. G-d forbid more of us should learn such things first hand. But like others have said, back-ups are good. Back-ups of a different sort are even better. And everyone with a landline should have at least one corded phone in the house, because almost all will work without house power.
Hey, that's unAmerican, or at least unTelphonian. In the United States of Telephone, all phones are created equal.
Oh. OK.
That's exactly backwards. The WTC was home to a number of cellular antennas, and the cellular service obviously went down when the towers did. Landlines that were not routed through the towers continued to work.
installations. Older ones just have a junction box with a
powerCordless phones always require outside power.
Not only cordless phones, but also phones that have features like a Speakerphone and speed dial. I have a 2 line Lucent phone here with those features that requires batteries.
usually the wires connected to the center 2 pins of the phone
I got to see a CO when I was in college. They said many of the batteries came out of submarines.
[snip]
installations. Older ones just have a junction box with a
powerCordless phones always require outside power.
If it's just speakerphone, that can be line powered. Speed dial (and caller ID) involve memory that has to be maintained all the time. Batteries may be needed to provide power when the phone is "on hook", since little current can be drawn from the line at that time.
usually the wires connected to the center 2 pins of the phone
installations. Older ones just have a junction box with a
powerCordless phones always require outside power.
line powered. Speed dial (and
Ever hear of Flash memory?
line.It's usually the wires connected to the center 2 pins of the phone
I didn't think they even had phones in 1180. Wasn't that just a century after the Battle of Hastings?
Western Electric phones are practically indestructable. I can believe that one would last more than 800 years. I hated to throw the one away that I mentioned, and I could have fixed it if I had tried another one or two or three times, but no one would use it with the 4 inch metal connector on the end. But for example the small parts in that silver box: I don't think I'd taken one apart before, but it was like my friend said, some nameless parts in a clear semi-white jelly. Sort of like silicone cement that never cures. One summer during college my friend had a job at the end of a WEstern Electric phone refurbishing lline, and he found a junk phone and spent all of his lunches taking it apart, opening the silver box, and trying to get the jelly off to identify the parts. Some you could tell what they are by shape, but iirc NONE had values on them. He had asked his boss for a schematic and was told there was none, that phone knowledge was all transmitted by word of mouth. But the last day of his summer, when he was quitting to go back to school, the boss gave him a photocopy of the wiring for a dial and a touch-tone phone. I still have a copy somewhere. From my pov, mostly useful for connecting attachements**, not for fiddling inside the silver box. This was 1967 iirc.
For example, I was "press secretary" for a little-known political candidate in 1970. He woudl record a radio press release, and one of my jobs was to call each radio station in the district and play the tape for them. He would hold the cassette player speaker up to the mouthpiece of the phone. It worked pretty well. I put a simple speaker mini-phone plug on a wire from the two speaker screws inside the phone, and plugged it into the cassette recorderr, and the fidelity was perfect. Plus we in the office (his living room) could talk while it was being played. This was good because I had to call 4 places every morning, and it was hard to shut everyone up.
He also paid for unlimited calls to another campaign office 40 miles away, but the phone line was at his office (not his living room.) I just connected the red and green from one line to the red and green from the other, so anyone in Racine could call the office and get connected to Kenosha (if someone was there to dial and to trip the DPDT slide switch. Volume was pretty low, and I don't think they did this very often, because goind to the office in Racine wasn't hard.
Never had any electrical problems because of this, and when the campaign was over, I'm sure the phones were taken out. We won by 3 votes out of 50,000 cast in the primary, and after the recount, we lost by 4. And I was from out of town and knew no one outside the campaign, but I still talked to 4 supposed supporters of his who told me they didn't vote the previous day. One was the landlord of the apartment they rented for out of town people, another ran the grocery near the apartment where we bought food, etc. Because this was a primary, I guess, it doesn't get mentioned afaik as a famous close election, but it was a primary for Congress. We lost to Les Aspin, who had pretty much the same views as my candidate, and who went on to be Secretary of Defense, and then to die in his 40's or 50's.
Once they've built the machinery to make IC's, it probably only costs
5 cents to make one. DEsigning a new one costs money too, butI never got inside a central office. In 1967 I watched over the shoulder as someone punched in his id code into a touchtone pad, and I wanted to go back and let myself in, but I didn't have the nerve. This wasn't a business office, only equipment, and I'm sure everyone there knew everyone who might be there. Plus they probably changed the code while I was thinking about it.
They still use batteries. I think. Pretty much like they have for
100 years, i thihk.In 1954 my father had a crystal radio, with an eleastic cord to hold it to one's ear. A tuning knob that enabled one to get ONE station where we lived (probably only had 3 or 4 anyhow.) Eventually it stopped working and I broke it open. Only 2 parts inside.
He also had a battery/AC powered tube radio made in about 1953 or 4. The numbers at the start of the tube names were 1 and 2, and it had two batteries, 6 volt and iirc 43 volts. In the 60's when I wanted to replace them, one was 2 or 3 dollars but the 43 volt battery was about
45 dollars. I couldn't rationalize spending that amount.With AC, it warmed up in a couple seconds.
I have a speakerphone at my desk that is line powered. I have another one in the kitchen that uses a small wall adapter. It doesn't seem worth it to plug in the adapter 24/7/365 for maybe 10 minutes a year I would use the speakerphone. I guess I won't.
I know redial can work on line power. I can never remember how to store things in memory. :)
The corded phone that needed batteries had a bunch of features, including a display of the time and date, and the number just dialed. While it needed 4 AA to do this I don't know.
I have an early, 1971, GE FM radio with pushbutton numbers and digital tuning that can run down 2 nine volt back up alkaline batteries in about 5 hours. Yet I have a watch that can keep time for 5 years on a much smaller battery. Strange.
And new cordless phones can't be turned off. They say better design enables them to stay charged for what, 3 or 4 days, even when on. Yeah, but if one could turn them off, so they didn't ring when the phone rang, but I could place a call from one, they would last 20 or
30 days. That would be really good. Maybe I will have to take mine apart and modify it.
recent installations. Older ones just have a junction box with a
powerCordless phones always require outside power.
be line powered. Speed dial (and
Apparently the manufacturers of those phones were saving money (flash memory would have been more expensive 10-20 years ago, and some of those phones will still be around).
line.It's usually the wires connected to the center 2 pins of the phone
I have a speakerphone that connects directly to the phone line. It doesn't have a dial but could be used to answer calls. That thing is completely line powered.
My father bought a s mall one-piece phone in about 1980. It had redial (for some strange reason, that worked only when set to pulse dialing) and 3 programmable buttons (supposed to be used as a substitute for the nonexistent 911 service). It had a small backup battery. Maybe just so it would retain memory while disconnected from the phoneline.
Was the display lighted? That takes a lot of power.
My current cordless phone has no on-off switch, but the ringer can be disabled. However, it still lights up when it would otherwise be ringing.
No. It was an LCD display. It's broken now, can't hear anything, and I haven't had time to look at it. But this was the one that generated radio station interference in the phone, so it's not at the top of my list.
A good option. For a while I had a light in my bedroom so that when the phone ringers were turned off, but I was awake, I could see the light flashing. It's one of those that look like a plastic pointed half-lemon, pointing up. With a neon light, had to add a resistor.
I apologize. You're absolutelly right. I called a friend in NYC to make sure. It kept flipping back and forth in my head which way it went. Another good reason to have a "real" phone, wired to the phone company.
It's required for NEW phones, too. It's called "dial tone" or "battery".
A "power shortage", eh? I knew it. We need a new government bureaucracy to address our dependence on FOREIGN DIALTONE.
Say what? ...as if there's a master potentiometer out there somewhere.
Who WAS that masked phone?
Use the new, $10 Radio Shaft phone for this exercise.
I suggest using a 16-lb sledgehammer.
FWIW, the correct term for "banging on the switch-hook" is "flashing the switch-hook". Many modern phones have a "flash" key, but is usable only for a SINGLE flash to switch between callers in Call Waiting mode.
Did you know you can "dial" and entire number by simply/quickly "flashing" the switch-hook? It's called pulsing the line.
Flash the switch-hook, in rapid succession, 5 times for the number 5; 8 times for the number 8; and so on. It really works but you have to be VERY nimble with your finger on the switch-hook and ACCURATE with the short pause between each pulsed number. Talk about worthless trivia...
They're out there. They are usually multi-line (>2 lines) sets.
Some go into "dumb mode" without their transformer-supplied power and can still dial out and receive calls on ONE line but many/all other functions and features are unusable.
A few others, without their external power supply, don't work at all.
The phone was probably defective right out of the box. It happens.
You can be sure it has components MUCH older than that. It is indeed "polarity sensitive" and requires the pair to be properly connected. If you cannot "break dialtone" with the buttons, reversing the pair always fixes that problem.
Ahhhhh, the Set Ownership Plan, circa 1984. The Good Old Days.
My telco career spans BOTH sides of The Big Breakup in 1984.
They weren't "waiting" - they WERE (and still are) powering the system. Today's modern telephone Central Office still uses a (very big) battery to PRIMARILY power the system. The computers, switches, yadda, yadda - and even emergency standby lighting in the office - are all DIRECTLY operated from the battery. Grid power is rectified and is constantly recharging the battery.
You are mistaken. The power techs are alive and well, caring for the battery that resides in EVERY Central Office. These same technicians are also responsible for the "care and feeding" of the standby power plant found at most C.O.s.
This is the exact reason that my company chose two-line, LINE-POWERED phones to hang on the distributing frame in "my" C.O. Also, "every" central office has an "FX" line - a Foreign Exchange line. In the event of a total C.O. failure, there is still one working line fed from another (nearest) C.O. (We were using "FX lines" before Hollyweird ever thought of the term.)
Survivalist. It's not a bad thing to be.
I'd never heard that but certainly believe it.
I wonder if we'll get their used nukes?
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