[GreenKeys] The Milliwatt Supply...

Don Robert House K9TTY at dls.net
Tue Feb 17 22:26:59 EST 2009 

Yes Peter,

But each company had their own numbering scheme.  -9960 in Illinois is  
the number for the toll department in all the COs.  We also had what  
some companies called the 107 Test Line.  It would step trough 1004Hz,  
304Hz, and 2804Hz and then give several seconds of quiet termination.   
Each company after divestiture was required to publish a listing of  
all test lines to be shared with the competition.

Most of the larger Bell companies reserved the use of numbers with  
99xx for official services as in the days of rotary dial 9s were  
subject to the most error and took longer to dial.  In Illinois 98xx  
was reserved for pay phones.  Almost all of our official telephones  
were green as the customers had to pay for colors and very few wanted  
the green color.  Of course Southwestern Bell and Pacific Bell were  
noted for doing the exact opposite of what AT&T suggested.

As Jack mentioned Area Codes with 910, 510 and two others I have  
forgotten were reserved for Dial TWX service.  910 was the largest and  
is now used as a telephone area code in North Carolina.

Now back to your regular programming.

Don


On 17 Feb 2009, at 9:03 PM, Peter Gottlieb wrote:

A lot of COs had -9960 as the milliwatt reference, including the one  
where I lived.  I was one of the first to order an interface to the  
phone lines, they called them DAAs back then, "Data Access  
Arrangements" and the installer who came had no idea how to determine  
the line loss.  I was just a teenager and told him how to do it and he  
hung out for a long while playing with the various test sets they gave  
him but for which he wasn't trained.  I showed him how to use them all  
and we followed the BSP to get everything set up properly.  I remember  
him "accidentally" leaving a good assortment of stuff from his truck  
for me.

The milliwatt number didn't just give you 1004 Hz, it ramped up when  
you called it if it hadn't been called in a while.  It would start way  
down at maybe 2-300 Hz and go up to 1004 in about a second or two.

Those old mechanical switches had personality.

Peter


Jack wrote:
>
> I’m not sure if the milliwatt numbers are still available for  
> installers to call into,
>
> but the “call back” numbers are still used.
> There was also a number that we called into for “Quick Brown Fox...”  
> to be sent
>
> to a dial up TTY...there was a separate number for the TWX service  
> (a 510-XXX-XXXX
>
> dedicated Area Code in NY/NJ that’s long reused fro telephones).
>
> I worked for a small electronics company
>
> before joining Ma Bell and we always called the QBF line to test our
>
> acoustic modem products and the repackaged Teletype Model 33 TTY’s  
> we sold with
>
> them as “portable terminals”.
>
>
>
> *From:* greenkeys-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:greenkeys-bounces at mailman.qth.net 
> ] *On Behalf Of *TELEGRAPHER at att.net
> *Sent:* Tuesday, February 17, 2009 12:09 PM
> *To:* Don Robert House; greenkeys at mailman.qth.net
> *Subject:* Re: [GreenKeys] The Milliwatt Supply...
>
>
> In addition when techs were sent to the field they sometimes needed  
> the same source of 1004 kc tone.  WECO made a portable unit  
> specifically for that purpose J94071B Milliwatt Reference  
> Generator). It supplied 1004 cycles at either 600 or 900 ohms  
> impedance's. I've got one here.  Anyway it was battery powered and  
> calibration was checked with a portable meter that was used with it  
> (J94023D Transmission Measuring Set).  It reads levels in either 600  
> or 900 ohms.  It was also used with some switching test sets in the  
> CO.  I've got one of them also and use it occasionally to verify  
> some of the levels around the shack here.  Nice little portable  
> meter with no batteries or ac/dc power needed.
>
> As an added sidenote, just what you all wanted to read, back in the  
> 70's we had a series of numbers that we could call from the field  
> that would give us, time of day, a MW reference level tone and gobs  
> of others for testing lines.  One of the neat ones was a ringback  
> number that we would call after a telephone installation, hang up  
> and then wait for it to call you back.  Particularly useful on 2 and  
> more party lines.  If you didn't gt a call back and you were on a 2  
> party line, you had to redo something.  With some two pary lines it  
> wasn't just a matter of flipping the T-R connection.  You had to go  
> in and rewire the set to give the office a different ground value to  
> see.  What a pain that one was.
>
> Enuff!
>
> Larry
> W0OGH
>
>
>
>    -------------- Original message from Don Robert House
>    <K9TTY at dls.net>: --------------
>
>
>    > I am spending too much time on this list.
>    >
>    > With the latest pains in my ear and throat I am bound to write
>    > something incorrectly...
>    >
>    > Sigh...
>    >
>    > Deci = 10 Bel= named after Alexander G. Bell
>    >
>    > 1004Hz at 1 milliwatt into 600 Ohms
>    >
>    > This is a standard reference for over 100 years for voice message
>    > circuits.
>    >
>    > One of these reference milliwatt supply is available in just  
> about
>    > every CO in the USA.
>    >
>    > Over copper wires, carrier systems, lightwave or whatever.
>    >
>    > Why did I have to dream about this last night...
>    >
>    > If you want to know more look it up in the Green or Red books...
>    >
>    > I guess you guys are getting to me.
>    >
>    > Don
>    > K9TTY
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