NE 631A1Q1A Call Director - Fat Cord Anyone?

[AE_Collector]

Everyone loves "Fat Cords" on their Old Phones. How about this beauty! And it is a good 8 or 9 feet long.

This one was removed from a Fire Dispatch Centre in 1985 or so when they converted from Rotary to Touch Call with the installation of a Northern Telecom SL1 PBX at the City Hall to replace their Ericsson ARD561 PBX.

These phones lived in office environments where the janitors would show up every month or two to pour liquid floor polish all over the place and then get to work with the buffer. Consequently Multi Line phone cords like this are frequently covered in the stuff. It took me more time today with steel wool and buckets of warm soapy water to clean the cord up than it did to get all the stickers and bits of tape residue off of the phone!

Phone is Northern Electric 631A1Q1A Call Director in White from 11-65 and then rebuilt by our shops in 1974. I removed it in 1985 and fortunately decided to keep it. 31 years later it is cleaned up and presentable.

Terry

[unbeldi]

D200F    — Fat

Each of the five connectors is wired with 20  27-gauge wire pairs, having the same colors in each branch.

These also came in extra-fat,  D270 with six plugs.

[AE_Collector]

Back in the 70's we could order out 100 pair with 4 - 25 pair binders for most applications OR 100 pair with 5 - 20 pair binders (no violets) for these 30 button Call Directors. More often than not we got what we got and divided it into 5 - 20 pair legs and got "Amphenoling".

Is the cord really 27 guage stranded? Nice and flexible considering there are 100 pairs in there. What would 135 pairs be needed for? Was there a desk Call Director with more than 5 key strips?

Terry

[unbeldi]

Back in the 70's we could order out 100 pair with 4 - 25 pair binders for most applications OR 100 pair with 5 - 20 pair binders (no violets) for these 30 button Call Directors. More often than not we got what we got and divided it into 5 - 20 pair legs and got "Amphenoling".

Is the cord really 27 guage stranded? Nice and flexible considering there are 100 pairs in there. What would 135 pairs be needed for? Was there a desk Call Director with more than 5 key strips?

Terry

Hmm...

ok:  Yes, #27 stranded copper wire

NE-D270QA   3x NS-16689 List 1 plug + 3x NS-16689 List 5 plug
                    8 ft
                    Ivory -50 only
                    QCN102A Telephone Console, SG-2 System

NE-D250 types:
                    5x 50 NS-166689 L1 plugs
                    8 ft
                    –51, –60, –61
                    NE-2B (No. 5 XB, 701B PBX, 757A PBX, No. 5 XB, 1ESS), NE-1A

NE-D220QA   5x NS-16689 L1 plug (3x 40 + 2x 50 conductors)
                    8 ft
                    Ivory -50 only
                    QCN101A console




                   

[AE_Collector]

Oh of course, PBX consoles. They used a variety of large cords.

The other thing that I always noted large beige flexible cords was on cable tagging set ups in each CO. I never paid enough attention to them to see how many conductors were likely in each cable.

Terry

[Stubbypylon]

When I entered the telephone industry in 1981, I was replacing these call directors with more modern technology.  The new technology was still 1A2 based but used concentrators in the main telephone room allowing you to reduce the cable size out to the telephone.  The challenge with these cutovers was always how to remove the jam packed conduit or floor duct feeding from the phone room to the call director.

[AE_Collector]

Craig:

Was that working for Bell Canada? Were those conversions to Logic Key Sets modified for this purpose? In BC we did a little bit of that but it was very late 70's and very early 80's so 1A2 type key systems were just about to become obsolete on new installs at least.

We used a system that we called "Logic 100" that was likely an outside manufacturer rather than made by NT. It had relay boards in the phone room and the station equipment was modified Logic 20's with non locking keys and any number of the matching Logic Busy Lamp modules (a set of 2 - 10 button keystrips in a wedge shaped case that attached the the Logic 20 as an expansion unit) allowing expansion to 100 lines. Each 20 button segment needed a 25 pair (probably only 20 pairs really except for the first cablet to the actual phone which also needed a talk pair and a signalling/ringer/buzzer pair) rather than the usual 50 pairs per 20 line buttons. All buttons were non locking. Pushing the button selected the line via relays in the phone room and connected that line to the one T&R talk pair. So each line needed one pair the equivilent of the A and Lamp lead rather than 2 to 3 pairs.

A couple of years ago I found some of the relay boards in a phone room but elected to not grab them as none of the modified Logic sets were available and I only have 2 or maybe 3 regular Logic sets so I wouldn't want to modify any of them for this purpose.

Terry

[Stubbypylon]

Terry, I was installing V-Band systems, TIE Turrets, British Telecom's City Business System, Etrali, and Wyatt.  V-Band systems and TIE Turrets were 1A2 based and were used out on the trading floor for the traders while often the managers received a Logic 10 or 20.

[AE_Collector]

I wish I knew who built the stuff we used. Now i wish i had grabbed some if the boards. I guess you have no pictures?  I rarely ever took my camera to work. If we had cell phones then like now I woukd have lots of pictures of the old equipment we installed and removed.

Maybe I can find somethingvabout TIE Turrets online. Have never heard of that though I definitely know who TIE is and have one of their UltraCom electronic KSU's along with a bunch of phones. So the trading floor had the multiplexed key sets due to a huge number of line sppearances? Was that equipment proprietery to TIE and had regular 1A2 curcuits tied to the equipment in the phone room that ran the keyset equipment on the floor?

Terry

[HarrySmith]

Nice! Good call on not trashing it.

[Stubbypylon]

Terry,
Here are some pictures from 1984.  This was a V-Band installation I did for Merrill Lynch's trading floor (not sure who the skinny kid in the tie is  ).  They had around 80 traders and 400 lines on 1A2 key.  The traders turrets varied from 30-120 lines using combinations of ring down, hoot and holler and PBX dial tone.  V-Band used their own 1A2 panels and cards as WE/NE equipment would cause intermittent problems like false hold.  You'd wire out the lines on key (minus the grounds) to the concentrators shown.  It was then a 12 pair cable that fed the turret.

I don't have any pictures from the one TIE Turret installation I did in 1989 which is too bad.  It was 250 traders and 1200 lines on 1A2 key.  TIE used NE 1A2 equipment.  Their turrets looked like they were made by Fisher Price as they were so colourful, however traders liked that because it was easy for them to quickly determine what lines were where.

[Stubbypylon]

more pics

[Stubbypylon]

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[Stubbypylon]

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[Stubbypylon]

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