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AE/ Gray Paystation 150HJ

Started by Gary Z, March 12, 2017, 07:55:50 PM

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Stan S

Paul and Jim
You have to look at the big picture and the time frame to understand the difference between Western Electric and Automatic Electric Postpay 3-slots.

AE sold to small independent telephone companies. Basically mom and pop operations that didn't have unlimlted resources like the Bell System.

An AE Semipostpay LPA, LPB or LPC 86-55 was a wonder of mechanical and electrical engineering. A Western Electric 193 was pretty much just an empty box that required a lot of central office equipment.

Any AE Semipostpay 3-slot could be connected to ANY PHONE LINE. Meaning, if you could buy an AE Semipostpay phone you could hook it up to the phone line in your home and it would work as a fully functioning postpay payphone. It didn't need a special payphone coin line or any specialized central office equipment. That was in the 50s, 60s and maybe the 1970s.

When Semipostpay AEs were in service 'Called Party Supervision' was the norm for central office equipment. Remember, we are talking about the 1950s. 60s, and maybe into the 1970s. Called Party Supervsion reversed the polarity of the TIP and RING of the phone PLACING the call when the CALLED PHONE answered. It was that change in polarity that controlled the Semipostpay coin relay in the AE payphone. Unfortunately, Called Party Supervision is no longer a function used on standard phone lines. Called Party Supervision was also detected and used on a lot of not quite legal telephone devices. Some of them by our Government and some not. Maybe a story for another time.

In later years the mechanically complicated AE Semipostpay coin relays were replaced by a simple aftermarket asssembly manufactured by The Teltronics Corp. This assembly was designed around a newly developed electronic part called an SCR. There are many payphones equipped with Teltronics assemblies that show up on Ebay even today.

Stan S.
   

RotarDad

Stan - Thanks for the detail - that makes perfect sense.
Paul

Payphone installer

To follow up on Stans post the reverse battery feature was available in some central offices at the Bell companies. In smart payphones a answer was detected with what they called AD or Answer Detect.

Answer detect listened for voice like Hello, it could also detect a busy signal or a ring tone. If you got a tape like please hang up and try again you often lost your money.
What was supposed to happen was on a CO message you received a SIC tone from the CO this told the phone to return the coin.

The problem is that over time the phone companies got lax on providing coin tones.
  I learned something from Stan here today that the semi post pay A/E used reverse battery. That makes perfect sense.
In a smart set like Protel there is a feature to allow the payphone to collect the coin on reverse battery instead of Answer Detect. I never used it as a payphone provider because it required a different type of coin line that was only available in some areas and carried a extra cost.

Keep in mind reverse battery is a form of office supervision. A coin line Dial Tone First coin line used reverse battery in concert with collect return voltage to cause the phone to act as a pre-paid. The DTF payphone line could be used on a dumb or smart set.
The Protel smart set has the ability in the software to accept a DTF line,I have learned a lot using this software as the setting in it educate you on the function of the CO from the outside.

The smart set is basically a mini CO interacting with the telephone network on its own. It knows calling areas and responds to line conditions as it monitors the telephone line. It contains options files and routing files. It is a amazing telephone.


Here is the part I know Stan would agree with me on DO NOT BUY A SMART PHONE unless you know what kind it is and you have access to the software. You are only buying a case if you don't have these two items.