Just thought I'd toss an introduction out there... I recognize some names here as members of the TCI mailing list, but there's a lot of new names here as well.
Anyway, my name is Keelan, and I've been mixed up in this hobby since 1997, when I was a wee lad of only 16 years old. My introduction to old telephones came almost by accident. My classmates and I were given a box full of 1A2 sets to destroy disassemble in an educational manner in our high school electronics class, and it got me to wondering how things worked on the other end of the phone line.
This curiosity lay dormant for a short while until I came across an older PBX at an auction at a local hotel that was slated to be knocked down. I knew nothing about telephones, but the large blue box in the dank basement of that dive had me very curious. I put down all the money I had at the time ($70), and that evening hauled home a very large, heavy and mysterious contraption the size of a refrigerator.
The PBX, a Northern Electric SG-1A (from their glory days), came with an attendant's console, 30 AE Model 80's and a couple NE Contempras. My telephone collection received a definite jump start, given that I had no rotary dial phones prior to this. Everything was caked in years of sleazy hotel grime, and I am still (13 years later) cleaning up phones from that original stock of 30.
My primary interest was with the PBX. The SG-1 was the first all electronic PBX to be manufactured in North America. All the electronics existed on 8" x 8" PCBs, loaded in 23" wide card shelves. There were a number of shelves, the 'control' shelf, which contained the 'CPU' of the system, the 'Option' shelf, 'Trunk' shelf, 'Power Supply' shelf, 'Line' shelf, etc. It certainly gives a person an appreciation for the single PCB PABX's that run most small businesses these days. A fully populated 120 line cabinet weighed somewhere around 900 lbs.
The system employed digital control, built entirely out of 7400 series TTL logic ICs, with diode blocks and strapping blocks used to 'program' the system. The speech pathway was entirely analogue, and multiplexed up to 24 simultaneous conversations onto a single 1 pair speech pathway. All very fascinating for a 16 year old, but at the time, I didn't know a telephone trunk from a tree trunk, or loop signalling from fruit loops. Fortunately the PBX came with a set of detailed manuals, and I spent many evenings (when I should have been doing homework) going through those manuals trying to build up some sort of understanding. Looking back, it was probably the most awkward way to learn about telephone systems, but it was all that I had access to at the time.
Fast forward a decade and a bit, and now I have two of my first system, the SG-1A, a beautiful British Ericsson 50 line Strowger PABX, and a well used 557 answering service cordboard in my switching collection. I've come across a couple phones in the mean time, but they've always been secondary to the switches. I have lost track of the number of AE model 80's that I have. As for bakelite, I have a AE model 40, a strange British Ericsson 10 line intercom phone, and a Northern Electric Uniphone. I also have a Nortel Centurion pay phone, which I will remember because of the adventure I had to go on to the the upper lock removed by a tech from the telephone company.
For the last 8 years, I have been in the datacenter business, and I now manage the network for a large datacenter and network operating company here in BC. The knowledge that I gained from this 'hobby' has ultimately helped me with my job is more ways than I would have imagined. My role has also brought me on a 'collision course' with Asterisk, and I've had the opportunity to work with Asterisk in a busy production environment; a great way to learn very quickly! Of course, as soon as I transitioned our office away from a Nortel BCM based system (yuck, no surprise they went bankrupt) to Asterisk, I had a ubiquitous black AE model 80 on my desk, connected to an ATA to the new phone system.
Anyway, that's a little bit about me.
Wow, 30 AE 80s? Are they all black? BTW, welcome!
The 30 AE 80s that came with my first PBX are all 'sand beige'. Since that initial influx, I've added mostly black and ivory, with a few coloured phones as I've come across them. I don't have the full spectrum and I've stopped using eBay, so the collection is growing quite slowly. It gives me something to look for when I'm wandering around thrift shops and antique stores.
Here's the only photo I have of the batch of AE 80s. They're not all there, some were in the process of being 'refurbished' (read: sanitized), while others were being used with the PBX. It's a tiny photo that I pulled from one of my old web sites from the days of dialup:
(http://beefchicken.com/telephones/ae80s.jpg)
The number plates had thin plastic covers on them, than retained rancid, nasty, stain soaked paper dialling guides (9 for local calls, 8 for long distance, etc.). There's also a couple AE 80E's in that photo as well.
A photo including the PBX:
(http://beefchicken.com/telephones/outside.jpg)
A few months after I took this photo I moved my setup to much nicer digs, with a 'real' door, carpet and drywall. You can't tell from this photo, but out the doorway was a 4' drop to the ground. The elevated deck surrounding that building had been removed years ago, and stairs had never been installed in the mean time. It made loading the PBX into the building really fun for my brother and I, a couple of teenagers at the time.
The pink bundle of cables on the floor was 3 x 100 pair cables that fed the operator's console. Yes, it needed 300 pairs to make it work:
(http://beefchicken.com/telephones/sg1console.jpg)
The pictures aren't coming through, I'm seeing red X's.
Yeah, just my luck that I posted those images 10 minutes before my server was taken offline to move it to a new datacenter. The should be back in an hour or so.
I see them now. So what looks like white dial bezels are just plastic coverings? What's an AE 80E? How is it different from an AE 80?
Keelan:
Welcome to the forum!
Greg: An 80E is a later version of the 80 that has a plastic base, and was able to be configured either for rotary or touch-call (AE's word for touch-tone DTMF) It has a flat plastic clip-on bezel that resembles the one used on Western 1500/2500 sets.
Go down about halfway down the page on this link, and you can see what they were. They were also made in the US in GTE for those on GTE system phones. In fact, I even had one once in real life, and I have one in my collection now.
http://www.islandregister.com/phones/ae.html
Welcome to the forum Keelan:
Your switcher experience is a welcome asset to the forum! You will find a lot of AE phone fans around here.
Keelan;
Welcome to the forum. Yes your PBX experience will be appreciated. I know absolutely nothing about PBX, but it beginning to appear that if you want to use your collection in the future you may need one. I almost pushed the button on a Panasonic KX-T308 last night, but read somewhere about needing this program and that attachment, and decided to learn more about them. Yours appears to be in very good condition.
D/P
Welcome to the forum Keelan.
I think you will like it.
Jim S.
Jim Stettler
ATCA #1556 TCI
Quote from: Dan/Panther on May 29, 2010, 12:09:57 PM
Keelan;
Welcome to the forum. Yes your PBX experience will be appreciated. I know absolutely nothing about PBX, but it beginning to appear that if you want to use your collection in the future you may need one. I almost pushed the button on a Panasonic KX-T308 last night, but read somewhere about needing this program and that attachment, and decided to learn more about them. Yours appears to be in very good condition.
D/P
Hi D/P:
The 308's out of the box default program is usually all you will need.
If the 308 or 616 has a battery in the battery compartment, remove it to erase the previous settings. It will default to a mode where it supports rotary and standard TT phones very well.
Jorge;
'Thanks for the heads up.
Exactly what situation would evolve were I would NEED the PBX, I have POTS now, and can run 5 phones.
D/P
Quote from: Dan/Panther on May 29, 2010, 02:31:31 PM
Jorge;
'Thanks for the heads up.
Exactly what situation would evolve were I would NEED the PBX, I have POTS now, and can run 5 phones.
D/P
It just makes it easy for you to call between your phones for both testing AND playing. If you put phones in all rooms that are connected to the PBX, you now have a built in intercom system.
Of course you can receive and place calls to the outside world through your PBX phones as well unless of course there has been a Nuclear Holocaust and there is no one left other than yourself. This would be another reason to have the PBX as with no one left outside there is no one to call on your antique phones. With the PBX you can still easily call yourself!
Terry
Welcome, Keelan. I look forward to learning more about switching equipment. Thanks for the great introduction and photos of your equipment.
Quote from: Phonesrfun on May 29, 2010, 08:40:06 AM
Keelan:
Welcome to the forum!
Greg: An 80E is a later version of the 80 that has a plastic base, and was able to be configured either for rotary or touch-call (AE's word for touch-tone DTMF) It has a flat plastic clip-on bezel that resembles the one used on Western 1500/2500 sets.
Go down about halfway down the page on this link, and you can see what they were. They were also made in the US in GTE for those on GTE system phones. In fact, I even had one once in real life, and I have one in my collection now.
http://www.islandregister.com/phones/ae.html
Ok, I've actually seen the TT version in thrift stores but always passed them up.
My PBX is as recommended by folks here as the incomprable Pana KXT, not as interesting a device as yours though!
D/P - you would only need a proprietary phone if you want to customise your settings - eg assigning day or night mode extensions for ringing, or blocking toll-numbers etc, apart from that its plug and play, any presets can be cleared real easy.
Of course being me I jumped in with both feet, and picked up a 2nd hand 7130E (display set) which you need for programming and a dirt cheap DSS (Direct Station Selector) for 32 lines (eg twice as many extensions as my 6 to 16 needs), this was a nice buy its like a giant calculator with 32 ext buttons and 16 number store.
Each ext has 4 REN out so you could get from a 308 - 32 phones ringing if you had deaf neighbours...
Keelan: Welcome!
I'd like to see some photos of your console in action. It's always great to see something with lots of useful lights on and/or flashing.
D/P: With the number of phones you have, a Panasonic 616 or larger system might be a better choice.
Thanks for all of the welcomes. In the future, I'll share photos of some of my other systems; the SG-1, being all electronic, is the least interesting of them all to look at.
Quote from: paul-f on May 29, 2010, 04:39:17 PMI'd like to see some photos of your console in action. It's always great to see something with lots of useful lights on and/or flashing.
I would love to post some photos of the console up and running, but I haven't had the console powered up for years. I don't get to visit most of my switching equipment that often, it is still at my parent's place, and I haven't lived there for 10 years. I think I have some photos of my 557 cord board lit up; will that suffice? :) I don't have a very good power supply here, so I can't light up all 80 incoming lines, though ;)
Quote from: Keelan on May 29, 2010, 06:43:41 PM
I don't get to visit most of my switching equipment that often, it is still at my parent's place, and I haven't lived there for 10 years.
i guess i'll quit harping about the misc items my son has stored here. ;) great stuff, keelan, adds another dimension to our little corner of the world. :) welcome!
Wow, and I thought my 1232 was big. Here's a picture of my system that Steve Dunne help me set up. It has a Panasonic 1232 and a shoebox for the key phones. I got into phones about a year ago, and I'm 15 now.
(http://lh6.ggpht.com/_8Kn_stwnDW4/TAGp7ncyyaI/AAAAAAAAAjY/m-6FReDS6RQ/s640/IMG_0580.JPG)
(http://lh6.ggpht.com/_8Kn_stwnDW4/TAGqEauzeRI/AAAAAAAAAjg/b50M8H7WWYg/s640/IMG_0581.JPG)
Quote from: Dan/Panther on May 29, 2010, 02:31:31 PM
Jorge;
'Thanks for the heads up.
Exactly what situation would evolve were I would NEED the PBX, I have POTS now, and can run 5 phones.
D/P
D/P:
To me it has been an interesting tool to fix phones, a way to demo phones to people that visit my office and a toy to play with, all mixed together. Currently I have 16 WE phones connected to it, however, I wish I could introduce a delay between ringing because since they are all in close proximity, it sounds like a very loooong ring that moves from one phone to the other.
For simplicity, Panasonic decided to ring phones in groups of 4. Now that we have switching people joining the forum, maybe they can suggest ways to fix this, if possible.
The pictures below show how I connected the PBX. I made 16 RJ-11 to 4 prong adapters and the phones all connect there.
Be sure you run the Panasonic 616 vertically. If you run it horizontally it will overheat because it uses convection cooling. I think that's why my 616 died.
Jorge, that looks just as much the same set-up as mine, I lose track of all the darn cables, plus all my GPO stuff needs seperate ADSL filters!
scot, can't you use a "whole house" filter at the point of entry?
Quote from: gpo706 on May 29, 2010, 08:51:20 PM
Jorge, that looks just as much the same set-up as mine, I lose track of all the darn cables, plus all my GPO stuff needs seperate ADSL filters!
I use a filter than allows DSL only to one line and POTS service to the rest of the house.
PS: Just like Donna mentioned below.
Donna/Jorge, I tried a splitter at the main scoket, no ADSL, and crackly phones.
All my US phones work fine on the PBX without them, being 2 wire, GPO/BT stuff seems to need filters on each, they are 4 wired.
Anyhoo I'm off for a week so time for a strip back and rewire from main POTS downwards!
Welcome Keelan! We certainly are gaining a following on PBX systems. Jorge do all those phones ring at the same time? That would be one impressive sound!
McHeath:
Following a system reset, by either removing the battery or using the special phone, an incoming call will cause all the phones (16 of them) to ring in groups of 4 at a time.
Jorge:
There are settings that allow you to set various extensions to have delayed ringing. Presumably you have one incoming line. You can set, for example, extensions 12 through 26 to only ring after a certain number of seconds from the time ringing starts, leaving 10 to ring always. Or you can do other combinations to suit your needs.
I did that on mine because the "ring around the rosy" ringing was driving me nuts. It is not the most intuitive way of programming, but the option is available if you have the programming phone and a manual.
Is there a distance restriction from the PBX to the farthest phone ?
D/P
D/P
from the 616 manual:
26 AWG under 460ft
24 AWG under 750ft
22 AWG under 1180ft