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Back in the USSR..

Started by gpo706, July 28, 2010, 06:34:42 PM

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gpo706

Looks mightily important bit of kit for someone in the Politburo!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Vintage-Soviet-BAKELITE-MULTICHANEL-BIG-BOSS-KGB-PHONE-/150472783549?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_Collectables_RadioTelevision_Telephony_SM&hash=item2308e076bd ( dead link 03-27-21 )

Too rich for my budget thought, who knows how you would wire it up!
"now this should take five minutes, where's me screwdriver went now..?"

LarryInMichigan

It looks relatively cheap to me.

I expect that one or two of the various buttons are for summoning 'assistance' for an interrogation.  The other buttons are for showing how great and mighty the Soviet Union is (so great that the phones need alot of buttons). 

In the waning years of the Soviet Union, I was working for US Robotics (the modem company), and the Soviet government was trying to purchase a large order of modems.  The company sent a few engineers to Moscow to look at the phone system there to determine what modifications would need to made to the modems to work there.  After they returned, they wrote up a report and distributed it to the employees.  I do not remember many details, but they found that the Soviet telephone system was a mess, lines were noisy, calls often failed to connect or were unexpectedly disconnected, and calls were normally not terminated until both side went on-hook.  They were not optimistic about being able to make the modems work there.

Larry

gpo706

Quote from: LarryInMichigan on July 28, 2010, 06:56:29 PM

I expect that one or two of the various buttons are for summoning 'assistance' for an interrogation. 

Perfect gift for my boss then...
"now this should take five minutes, where's me screwdriver went now..?"

McHeath

LOL Larry! 

It looks like an F1 handset and a GPO 300 series melted together and then got seriously overweight.

rdelius

I have one in by collection. If I remember right the big "piano" keys select the lines 1-6. the smaller rocker switches are hold swtches. There are windows with neon lamps to see which lines are  ringing. There is a receiver capsule inside for a speaker to make a noise when ringing. The small round buttons are for signalling . Heavy telephone.No key system needed all mechanical
Robby