Have you ever been Shocked working on your Telephones???

[LM Ericsson]

Here is a funny question. Has anyone here ever been shocked (electricuted) from working on their telephones!?!?! I have been many times. We all have to make sure to UNPLUG our phones when we work on them!!!

[teka-bb]

Definitely! For instance while using my BK Precision 1045A telephone tester 

I've also been shocked while working on the MDF at work during the time we had many LB and CB lines. Really 'funny' when you were soldering a new connection... 

[LarryInMichigan]

If you are touching the phone line wires when an incoming call arrives, you will get a nasty shock from the 90V ringing voltage (I know from personal experience from my younger years), but there should never be enough current to electrocute a healthy person.

Larry

[Doug Rose]

If you are touching the phone line wires when an incoming call arrives, you will get a nasty shock from the 90V ringing voltage (I know from personal experience from my younger years), but there should never be enough current to electrocute a healthy person.

Larry

In my first apartment, back when Lincoln was president, my girlfriend at the time was "helping me" add a phone in the bedroom. I was a phone novice. There were wires, it had to work! Well she is holding two bare wires from the telephone to two bare wires from the house wiring. Sweaty... no AC ... July. My mother calls me to make sure there is one foot on the floor at all times AND...... You would thought I was a murderer the number people that were banging on my door. Shocking!....Doug

[AE_Collector]

I have been nailed by ringing voltage at work so many times I couldn't begin to count them all.  Working on solder blocks you would get a shock and instictively pull your hand back across all the other soldered pins cutting your knuckles open. We called it "Rack Rash"

Terry

[HarrySmith]

Yes, I have been working a phone forgetting it was connected when a call came in, quite an eye opener! Even without ring voltage you will get quite a buzz!

[AE_Collector]

We have high voltage data lines that feel like it burns when you tangle with them. Very different feeling.

Terry

[ESalter]

I haven't gotten shocked working on a phone, but one time when I was grabbing a cord on the cordboard I accidentally bumped the ring button for that cord while I had my hand on the plug.  I was definitely awake after that!

[GG]

Many times.  Working on PBX MDFs it's a common occurrence.  Also we have a way of tracing CO lines that we refer to as the "pain test," which involves dialing the line and licking a finger and running it down the 66-block until *Ouchie!* there's your ringing line.   This is used when there are too many terminals to go through and dial the read-back code for every line.  It's harmless ONLY IF you are not grounded, you are wearing insulating footwear (any shoes or sneakers will do), and you are using ONE hand only on the 66-block.  In that case all you get is a shock across the skin on one finger. 

----

Worst one for me was when I was a young phone phreak, adding an extension in the house, standing with bare feet on a ladder on the basement floor... yep, touching a bare terminal when the phone rang.  That got a double-OUCH, from hand right through to bare feet and to ground.  Yes that was majorly STOOPID.  Really really majorly stoopid.  No excuses whatsoever for that one, even at age 13. 

Second worst was a T1 span that was high voltage, something over 100 volts DC battery (I'm not a transmission geek so I don't know the exact specs).  Not only did I give myself a nasty shock from left hand to right hand, but I also fried a test set on that one, or at least a non-trivially-replaceable fuse in a test set.   

One thing you should *never* do is hold a test set clip in each hand while going down through the lines on a block.  That will get you a shock from your left hand to your right hand, passing right through your heart.  Though ringing voltage is generally "not dangerous," there is always the slight risk that it could interfere with your heart rhythm especially if you have an underlying medical issue.   Always use TAC connectors or goof plugs of whatever kind, and one hand only.  Keep your goof plugs tied onto your test set cord with a short length of string, if it helps to make them easier to find that way.

[AE_Collector]

Second worst was a T1 span that was high voltage, something over 100 volts DC battery

That's the ones I mentioned. Very different feeling shock!

Now we power the RDAC's (fiber fed ADSL ports for ADSL and TV service) out on the street corners with 380VDC fed over cable pairs. Usually 25 or 50 pairs of it. I haven't tangled with that yet but it is only a matter of time.

Terry

[GG]

380 VAC.  Lovely.  Not.  That gets into potentially fatal territory and I really hope the unions dig in their heels on this one for example "we will not work in those terminals in the rain" etc. 

B----y h--l, the powers-that-be really ought to leave well enough alone and stop trying to turn telephones into TVs and vice-versa.  It's almost as bad as making lamps. 

[AE_Collector]

DC not AC.

The Cableco's have stolen lots of our phone customers so we are fighting back by stealing their TV customers. Soon they will be the telco and us the Cableco. For what it is worth though, I haven't seen anything that overall is a better system than Microsoft Mediaroom (Uverse TV in the USA), Telus Optik TV in BC and Alberta and parts of Quebec.

Terry

[dsk]

In my younger days, I had a bad habit of using my teeth to remove the insulation 
The last time I did it I was sitting on the top of the roof of a 4 storey building. The line should have been dead, but someones had connected it to a live wire carrying about 127V to ground.    Never done it again   

dsk

[boynblue27]

No but I have been "shocked" at the phone I was working on.  No ringers what the hell?
 

[GusHerb]

I decided to dial the line I was working on with the other line for whatever god knows what reason and got a nice pulsing shock to my fingers! Obviously that was the beginning of my being extra careful when working on phone lines...