Pictures of a 49er.

[AET]

Wow!  How exciting!!!!!  What an honor to be able to hold that phone AND take it apart even!!!!

[Jim Stettler]

On an earlier post I mentioned an Independant  truck driver/ telephone collector that will haul heavy phone items reasonably.

I beleive He is involved with this museum and has even taken the Audiochron to a show in the past.

I think he was the one who hauled Odis's (house of telephones) cord machines to a show for an onsite demo.

I know he has helped out several switchers with their shipping "problems".

Just something to keep in mind if you want to buy my spare switchboard 
Jim

[Phonesrfun]

Yes, they have an Audiochron hooked to their panel office.

Speaking of panel offices.  The panel switch was designed in the late teens and rolled out in large city central offices by the Bell System in the 1920's as a workhorse.  It actually stored the dialed number in a series of relays and then chose the best path to route the call.  This was actually an electro-mechanical computer from the 1920's, which is a true marvel if you think about it.

I believe the panel switch is the last complete operating switch in the world, according to the claims of the museum staff.

If anyone ever finds themselves in Seattle, forget going to a Mariner's game.  Forget the Space Needle.  Forget Boeing's flight museum.  Do go to the telecommunications museum!

Yay museum!

[Phonesrfun]

Wow!  How exciting!!!!!  What an honor to be able to hold that phone AND take it apart even!!!!

Well, I didn't exactly wet my pants, but I was impressed that they handed me the screwdriver and said "go for it".

[Dan/Panther]

Well, I didn't exactly wet my pants, but I was impressed that they handed me the screwdriver and said "go for it".


Bill;
Thank God for Depends right....
D/P

[Phonesrfun]

You got that right.  I'm not there yet, but maybe some day 

[keysys]

Yes, they have an Audiochron hooked to their panel office.

Speaking of panel offices.  The panel switch was designed in the late teens and rolled out in large city central offices by the Bell System in the 1920's as a workhorse.  It actually stored the dialed number in a series of relays and then chose the best path to route the call.  This was actually an electro-mechanical computer from the 1920's, which is a true marvel if you think about it.

I believe the panel switch is the last complete operating switch in the world, according to the claims of the museum staff.

Yay museum!

A Mr. David Talley has authored two or more books which include an easy-to-understand, detailed explanation of call processing through panel switches.  Titles are:

      --Basic Switching for Telephone Switching
      --Basic Electronic Switching for Telephone Systems

Highly recommended!

[Greg G.]

A couple of Youtube clips of the switch function.  I tried it from two different angles to try to minimize the shadow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5h78mkVH_8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBnoQcycou0

There's also a couple of still shots of the switch in both positions.  It's not a push-button.  From the horizontal position, you rotate it 1/4 turn clockwise so that the line is vertical.  It stops there and will only rotate back to the horizontal position.  Apparently it had never been hooked up, so I can't tell you where the two wires attached to it went, but the curator, Don, said they were only long enough to reach the equalizer.  It is definitely a factory job, as you can see from the pics of the hole.

The only thing he could tell me about the phone is that it was donated by one of my fellow co-workers, somebody at King County Metro Transit, who got it from a friend of his when he was "back east", didn't know specifically where.  They have never had it hooked up, but he said it looked like it took a 3-conductor line cord.

Included are more pics of the equalizer with yet another date, 11-49, and also a better look at the receiver element.  It actually has two different dates on it.  One date was obscured by the flash in the first picture.  Also found a date stamp of 5-49 on the handset itself, inside the receiver cup.

The switch hook plungers are the same as later ones in that they have a round top and are clear.  So I guess that will fuel some speculation as to why they used black ones for a while, unless perhaps these aren't original.

[paul-f]

Nice photos!

The switch appears to have enough contacts to be a line switch.  However, since there are only 2 wires connected, it was set up to turn something simple on and off.

With the observation that the wires only reach the equalizer, perhaps it was to disable the equalizer to test it's effectiveness.

[Dennis Markham]

Very nice photos, Greg.  I noticed that the date on the bottom is July 1949 and the equalizer is dated November....and those handset parts dated in May make it all over the board in 1949.  It appears to be very similar to production models that we're all used to seeing.  I noticed also that the C2A designation is marked on the frame of the ringer differently than ones I've seen with the date on the coil like the old 302 ringers.

It sure would be fun to refurbish the plastic on that phone!

[Dan/Panther]

Nice photos!

The switch appears to have enough contacts to be a line switch.  However, since there are only 2 wires connected, it was set up to turn something simple on and off.

With the observation that the wires only reach the equalizer, perhaps it was to disable the equalizer to test it's effectiveness.

If that were the case, would that keep it in the production series or testing phase ?
Why would the end user have a need to test the functionality of the EQ ?
D/P

[Dan/Panther]

DEennis;
You said a mouth full, would I love to get my paws on that entire phone to make it shine.
I'm sorry purists, but that phone needs to shine...
D/P

[paul-f]

Nice photos!

The switch appears to have enough contacts to be a line switch.  However, since there are only 2 wires connected, it was set up to turn something simple on and off.

With the observation that the wires only reach the equalizer, perhaps it was to disable the equalizer to test it's effectiveness.

If that were the case, would that keep it in the production series or testing phase ?
Why would the end user have a need to test the functionality of the EQ ?
D/P

Of course, we're speculating here!

The user wouldn't have a need to disable the equalizer.  IF that is the function of the switch, the set was probably used by a Bell System employee.

Since the equalizer was a new concept, it makes sense that the engineers would want to know details about how the set performed with and without it in various circumstances.

This set MAY have started out as a standard 500 "early production" set that was later modified for a particular test -- or may be part of a batch that were modified and deployed in several locations for various tests.

Of course, it could just as easily be part of a new category -- a pre-"early production" batch that was created for testing purposes.  We need more data points to seperate fact from speculation.

It's almost certain that Western Electric produced more units than the 4,000 that were reported in field trials.  There may have been hundreds or even thousands in the hands of engineers in BTL, WE and the operating companies who were running formal electrical tests on the sets in numerous operating environments -- near or far from the CO, on various CO switch types, on PBXs, etc.  I've asked at the AT&T and Lucent archives several times whether they know of any formal reports that may be filed of tests conducted in the late 40s or early 50s.  Apparently there's nothing in the computerized catalogs or obvious paper files.  It's anyone's guess whether there's anything in the uncataloged collections.  We need to keep hunting for any surviving hints.

[Dan/Panther]

We need to hunt in earnest for PEOPLE that were there. My mom is now 83, She would have been 22 at the time, and very probably could remember anything she participated in. She worked in a defense plant and recalls her job in detail.
We have maybe  5 or 10 years at the outside to trace these people down.
D/P

[AE_Collector]

This story continued in June 2012 at this thread:

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=7159.0

Terry