# One great website if you like old telephone stuff



## duramaxdarren (Sep 12, 2012)

minga!


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## jeffmoss26 (Dec 8, 2011)

Droool


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## ampman (Apr 2, 2009)

just think all that stuff fits in the palm of your hand now


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## HARRY304E (Sep 15, 2010)

Good stuff..:thumbup:


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

That looks like a neat way to spend an afternoon. It'd be fun to tour with a TELCO oldtimer who could give you some background. 

When it comes to phones I know how to punchdown jacks, and that's about it.


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## Ty Wrapp (Aug 24, 2011)

Those old "step" offices were so noisy you could not hear youself think. Hearing protection required!


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## Ty Wrapp (Aug 24, 2011)

Lead cable and pulp conductors...I'm gonna have nightmares


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## LARMGUY (Aug 22, 2010)

> *This view of the #5 crossbar shows several frames one behind the other. The frame that is closest in the photograph is the automatic monitor test frame. The frame just behind it is the master timer that tallies the toll charges for subscribers. The next frame after that is the automatic test frame*.


 


Ty Wrapp said:


> Those old "step" offices were so noisy you could not hear youself think. Hearing protection required!


 

I never worked for the phone company but I was inside a lot of CO's throughout the state installing and maintaining their Cardkey access control system. I always wore hearing protection in those. Especially the big ones that ran a complete exchange. Ahh the smell of Ozone and the sound of thousands of relays all clicking letting grandma talk to her sister in Detroit, a son calling home for more money, a daughter calling home from jail. 




Ty Wrapp said:


> Lead cable and pulp conductors...I'm gonna have nightmares


 


I laughed out loud!


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## Introyble (Jul 10, 2010)

Man, I just thought of this. You ever seen the guy who could call anybody in the world by whistling into the phone?

He used to call into the engineering department at Bell and give them instructions. Nobody had the direct number that shouldn't so , even though they didn't know who he was, they would listen to him. He would call them by whistling into the phone.

In one demonstration he makes a dozen calls that circle the globe and eventually calls the phone he is sitting next to. All by whistles.


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

Introyble said:


> ...You ever seen the guy who could call anybody in the world by whistling into the phone...?


Maybe you're thinking of Captain Crunch? He pioneered the trick of playing tones into a payphone to cheat it into thinking you'd paid for the calls, which no longer works.


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## mikeh32 (Feb 16, 2009)

it was later called blue box, due to the blue whistle. 

Computer hacking, was lets say one of my interests as a younger kid.


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## jeffmoss26 (Dec 8, 2011)

I am reading the book "Exploding the Phone" which talks about those guys...John Draper, Joe Engressia, etc. Fascinating stuff!!


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