# What is this? Northern Electric 98A



## cguillas

Can anyone identify this? It was brought in as a puzzle and boy is it ever! 
Under the black centre cap there are two ceramic graphite sliders (no springs or return mechanism) and the rods on the sides have a series of small slots cut to align with the cutouts in the backing piece. The back of the device is potted with beeswax. 

Northern Electric 98A


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## 480sparky

Lightning protection for telephone lines.


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## cguillas

Awesome. It is marked patented 1938. I'd love to read the patent on it. Anyone good with patent searches?


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## drsparky

You may check with Nortel, They started out as Northern Electric part of ATT. They had there own Canadian versions of Western Electric (Bell) equipment.


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## cguillas

Ha! I used to work for nortel in their Ottawa labs until about 2000 or so. There are no old timers left who'd know about this kind of thing; I promise you that.


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## drsparky

I didn't imply to find a employee from 1938, (71 years on the job) they may have a little museum or historical office.


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## cguillas

I think I'd have better luck at museums. Nortel is currently in such a bad way that they have employees that have had their pay held back for weeks and the pension/severance fund has been redistributed in the form of bonuses to upper management. It is a desperate shadow of a once great organization.


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## MDShunk

There's still a heck of a lot of them in use in old house basements all over my area. They typically get bypassed if the person gets a DSL line.


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## RegD

MDShunk said:


> There's still a heck of a lot of them in use in old house basements all over my area. They typically get bypassed if the person gets a DSL line.


Isn't this the demarcation point in older homes? Why would it be bypassed for DSL?


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## kielarsp

I just found something very similar to one of these but it was in the attic. this has treaded hub on it looks like some kind of switch. odd thing it was hooked up to the old knob and tube with 18 awg coming off the load side. A friend called it a attic gremlin. I will post pictures


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## davey

I wonder if it is what was designated an "A12 condulet"; the 18 AWG, I suspect, would have been illegal, though, whenever this was installed. How old is the building?


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## open short

the two carbons are for lighting protection.the two long red things are 7.5 amp fuses.also known as a protector.


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