Connections Museum - 2017-08-12
More footage from the vaults...As far as I can tell, this was shot by a PNB cameraman in a No. 5 Crossbar (5XB) office near the University District in Seattle.
Good ole’ 6c relays :) Western Electric used them for all kinds of applications. We had them in the field and they used them in Business Phone systems, 4 wire special service circuits and rotary dial intercom systems.
Nice stuff from the archive! Love it!
WOW This is what I did in the late 60s 70s and 80s. Loved the LIT.
I don't know what would happen first: Going deaf or going nuts if I had deal with all that noise day after day.
That Girl is a frame worker, I used to do that job, I did that job for about 6 months. Those blocks are the equipment side of the frame that provides dial tone, the other side is the field side that faces the customer. Next is a Translator frame, not shown is the number group frame a jumper also had to be run there to complete a service order.
Next is the Switch, I don't know what is happening there with those dials, that job is performed by a Switch technician.
she install some cross connect wires for a new service order , this is the main frame in the switch .
Yes, one side of the main frame was the connection for the line equipment, the other side of the frame was the connection to the cable and pair going out to the customer
AT&T went with “Wall to Wall” Comm Techs in the CO’s. One person does it all. No more Frame Tech and Com tech.
Very cool footage! Does the original broadcast videotape still exist? As this looks like it is from a VHS copy.
The original recording was very likely U-Matic or Beta. This VHS is the oldest generation I could find. Interestingly, I first thought this was shot by KOMO, our local news station, however I reached out to them, and they said they have no record of this in their archives. Looking more closely at the tapes, I noticed that the address on them was the old Bell Plaza, so these were actually shot by a cameraman employed by Pacific Northwest Bell. Unfortunately, PNB has been bought and sold and rebranded so many times now that I'm sure nobody knows where the originals are (if they even exist at all).
From the way the time code is showing, that would for sure be U-Matic as the source. It would be worth checking the archives of the former PNB, you will never know what you will find.
You should check with http://www.telcomhistory.org/collections.shtml, they may have the document or source video in the archive.
THG is actually our parent organization. We're the same people! ;)
THE TECH DIALING-IN THE SEQUENCE USING THOSE CHICKEN-HEAD ROTARY KNOBS IS LIKE WATCHING A CAPTAIN PILOT A STEAMPUNK SUBMARINE
I gotta get myself to this museum soon.
Does anyone know when the EMerson exchange had ESS installed? I'm guessing it was early 80s?
that segment of adding a new wire was cooool :D
Yeah! The wire-wrapping tool at the end.
You knew there was actual call traffic running through this switch just because it's noisy.
I kind of gathered the woman was doing translations work the moment she busted out the soldering iron. None of that stored program control stuff!
In the 1970’s they had a test board and the Plant Service Center. The installers and repairman would call “200” or “600” to get a testboardman to check the cable pairs to the subscriber in the field. Some of these test board guys liked to mess with the new installers and tell them to check their connection in the field and then “burn” on the line. That means they would send 130 volts DC voltage that would zap the new installer. It hurt especially if you were wet! Kind of an initiation they did till the installer got wise to it!
An old WECo installer told me that sometimes when there were shorts or crosses on the line, they'd just burn them out with high voltage DC. Apparently worked with relay windings too. If that didn't work, then someone actually had to go out and fix it. I've been zapped by +130V DC, and you're right. It hurts!
@Connections Museum I worked in the Centralized Repair Bureau in OKC for a few months. The dataspeed 40 on my desk was used for testing, MLT "mechanized Loop Testing" and I found that if a customer had static, caused by damp conditions, I could run a couple test that put power on the line and the trouble went away. At least for a little while until it dried out. Then I worked in the data center, I worked evenings and monitored MLT, Grads, Predictor and Cosmos. One system monitored air pressure on cables and most systems were 3B20s and bigger than three upright freezers. Most had less power than the pc I am working on now. Fun times when the power went out and we fired up the generator that was supposed to come online automatically. The good ole days.
Wire wrap. Good times.
are any of the people in the video now involved with the museum?
None of the folks in this particular video are involved with the museum, however we do have a few old-timers still around :)
Worked in several different Marker Groups in Calgary years ago for Alberta Government Telephones. What did you say? I can't hear you. ;)
I started out as a Frameman, earning $99 a week
What year was that?
@Ben Wolfram We'll never know. With inflation, I'm thinking it was in the 60's.
edge 130 - 2019-03-08
The test apparatus with the dials, was used by the frameman (frame-dame here) to test the wiring connections she made on the main frame, number group, translator. If you didn't get the green lights, you made a wiring error.
Amazing, today the local central office probably isn't manned, but I recall the workforce being about 25 people including Toll Supv, Switching Supv, Frame Supv, Tollmen, Switchmen, Franemen, throw in a cleaner, powerman, seasonal apparatus cleaners too. Not to forget the ever present WECO guys, Outside Plant guys stopping in.
Connections Museum - 2019-03-17
Thanks for the explanation of the lights. I had a suspicion that's what was going on, and we have that apparatus, but its not powered up on our main frame.
I've spoken with a few techs who work in 5ESS offices in the area. They're usually unmanned, and there are only a couple of techs that travel between a bunch of offices. The switches basically run themselves. I bet it was a lot more exciting back in the day :)
edge 130 - 2019-03-17
It was not unusual to see someone with 1,000 hours of accumulated paid overtime hours on the overtime list at the end of the year
P. Wingert - 2022-12-20
@Connections Museum Just watching the CM videos you forget just how much relay chatter there was when the entire setup was operating at daily levels IRL. Thousands of calls an hour. There is definitely a hum to the place. I bet some of the techs could feel how the overall switch's health was by the hum and changes in the hum. A propagating outage would stop things humming along, eh?