Private Line covers what has occurred, is occurring, and will ocurr in telecommunications. Since communication technology constantly changes, you can expect new content posted regularly.
Consider this site an authoritative resource. Its moderators have successful careers in the telecommunications industry. Utilize the content and send comments. As a site about communicating, conversation is encouraged.
Thomas Farely
Tom has produced privateline.com since 1995. He is now a freelance technology writer who contributes regularly to the site.
His knowledge of telecommunications has served, most notably, the American Heritage Invention and Technology Magazine and The History Channel.
His interview on Alexander Graham Bell will air on the History Channel the end of 2006.
Ken Schmidt
Ken is a licensed attorney who has worked in the tower industry for seven years. He has managed the development of broadcast towers nationwide and developed and built cell towers.
He has been quoted in newspapers and magazines on issues regarding cell towers and has spoke at industry and non-industry conferences on cell tower related issues.
He is recognized as an expert on cell tower leases and due diligence processes for tower acquisitions.
« November 2003 | | January 2004 »
Aside from a garish green, and some topics made too simple, this site is excellent for laypeople and children, anyone confused by or interested by electricity and electronics: Includes a cellular radio discussion. Best through a fast connection: http://www.ieee-virtual-museum.org/index.php external link)
A sad day yesterday as Motorola's board of directors elected Edward J. Zander to succeed Christopher B. Galvin as chairman and chief executive. Christopher was the last remaining Galvin family member at Motorola, founded by Paul Galvin in Chicago on September 25, 1928. Just in time for the Great Depression. Their first product was a battery eliminator, which let battery operated radios operate on A.C. power. They later branched into the car radio business, a dauntingly complicated field. All sets required custom fitting into each automobile, radios depended on fragile vacuum tubes, ignition noise problems hadn't been solved, and each radio had to be built one at a time. No assembly line production. Chassis and components were all machined or fitted or soldered together by hand. Times change. There's no Disney at Disney any more. In time perhaps no Ford will work at Ford. But no Galvin at Motorola?
There's no good central history of Mot. You have to read around the edges. Two histories I like are The Founder's Touch: The Life of Paul Galvin of Motorola by Harry Mark Petrakis, published by McGraw Hill in 1965 and A Personal Journal: 50 Years at Motorola by Andy Affrunti, published by Motorola University Press in 1994. (ISBN 1-56946-008-6).
Greetings from a rainy California. Bleak day. This photo, though, should brighten things up. GSM, or PCS in the United States, started in Europe in the late 1980s and has now spread across the globe. It was at first a primarily Ericsson product. The photo below is explained by The Ericsson Chronicle like this:
"1986: The Ericsson demonstrator that went to the Paris evaluation trials. The mobile telephone standing on the top is the model into which the first GSM phone was eventually designed."
Click on the photo or the link for a larger image.
The new F.C.C. radio history project is a good start at portraying American radio development: http://www.fcc.gov/omd/history/ (external link)
The pages are easy to read and well illustrated. But with all first drafts, there are some mistakes. Perhaps members of the wireless community, supplying corrections, can help them develop a truly accurate story. They first need to correct the record about themselves, then others. This statement is totally inconsistent with the historical record:
"The FCC is pleased to have played a historical role in fostering the innovative atmosphere that enabled creative minds and led to technological breakthroughs. The FCC remains committed today to further fostering innovation in communications ."
Nonsense. From relegating broadcast FM to a high frequency band, almost killing it, hoping to keep Armstrong from developing it, working in league with RCA to keep it suppressed, to delaying cellular deployment for at least 10 years, possibly 15, the FCC does not have a good record of fostering innovation. They don't have to criticize themselves for the past, I don't expect that, but they should only take credit where they deserve it. They're a fine group, they do many things well, but radio advancement in America has been in spite of the FCC, not because of it.
Some dates and details are also wrong. I don't have time to list them all but attributing Martin Cooper and Motorola to inventing the first cellular telephone is just not right, it's a major mistake. AT&T made the first cellular radio four years before (internal link) Just to interest you, it was a payphone. On a train. And it was used in commercial service. What Cooper did was make the first handheld cellular telephone. A fine accomplishment but a natural one. All radio progresses from large radios fixed in place to small ones that are mobile. But I ramble, check out their site and let me know what you think.
With a bang and a flash two power lines outside my house dropped to the ground at three in the morning. My home and several others immediately went dark. The West Sacramento Fire Department responded promptly, Pacific Gas and Electric less so. By afternoon power was restored. Spent the day away from here, doing ranch work in Elk Grove. I mentioned Ericsson.
Ericsson installed their first cellular network in America for Buffalo Telephone in 1984. Buffalo was the so called non-wireline carrier, a competitor to NYNEX Mobile which operated in the same territory. NYNEX was termed the wireline carrier since they were affiliated with the local, wireline telephone company. In any case, this was the start of Ericsson's cellular business in America and they wanted to make sure things went right for the ceremonial first call. As Merurling and Jeans relate in The Ericsson Chronicle:
"Both the Buffalo operator and the Ericsson people were nervous. Some of the testing had not been conclusively successful, indicating that the system, too was still a bit nervous. It was decided to have a plan B for the cut-over so as not to embarrass the Mayor of Buffalo, who had agreed to do the opening honours. Plan B was the 'manhole method." A little man would be concealed down a manhole conveniently situated in the street along which the cortege would roll. At the crucial moment, the limo would stop, right on top of the manhole, and if necessary, the manhole man would emerge furtively and plug a telephone line into the limo. Barring severe problems in the fixed network, there would then be no difficulty making the inaugural call to Sweden."
"However, at the moment of truth the new mobile system did perform perfectly. The mayor made his call, and talked to Carl-Gosta Asdal about -- we know not what. It was a success, and the first non-wireline network in the US was in operation."
My notes indicate that the first non-wireline carrier in the United States was actually Cellular One in Washington, DC, which began operating, with problems, on December 16, 1983, six months before the Buffalo cutover. No matter, Ericsson would soon go on to capture 30% of the cellular radio infrastructure market in America, and they continue to influence cellular in these times. No doubt helped by the cleverness they displayed in Buffalo that day.
http://www.privateline.com/archive/minilinkericsson.jpg
(internal link to a larger picture (164K)
Click above to view this fine Ericsson photograph. (164K) It's from The Ericsson Chronicle by Merurling and Jeans. The photographer is not credited. The Chronicle is perhaps the best illustrated telephone history, a landmark in corporate biography design. 'Cmon, they're Swedish, they're going to produce something stylish. :-) Nearly 500 pages. I think I paid thirty dollars for it used but it was in great condition. You'll delight any telephone enthusiast this holiday season with a copy.
Stepper stumblings
I'm still trying to explain stepper operation, at least with the limited time I have right now. This ties in to Stephen Crowsen's comments on steppers here (internal link). How about relating the operating to a robot, with the selectors and brushes and contacts being its arms and fingers? Is that a warm and fuzzy enough comparison? Hmm. The subject needs much more pondering:
The difficult thing to imagine, at least for me, is that in a Strowger switch we first set up a mechanical path for a call to travel on. I suppose that applies to a cord switchboard as well. We take the cord and plug it into a jack. We have to make a mechanical connection before we connect electricaly. And with an electrical connection comes the call. A Strowger switch arranges a physical path by placing different mechanical devices, brushes, selectors, and so on, in contact with each other. This allows a complete electrical path. That arrangement is held in place by the switch until the call is disconnected and all of the pieces reset themselves.
Techs trying to trace a call are looking for the physical representation of the call path on the switch. While ignoring all the other calls being placed at the time. There's an exact point in the switch where the "3" and the "7" and the "4" and all the other numbers are connected. By looking at those they can determine the caller's number. But as the writer points out, without memory, the switch will extinguish those points of connection as soon as the call drops. Hmm.
What I'd really like to do is to go to the Roseville Telephone Museum and videotape their demo stepper. Then slow down the tape and make it into a QuickTime .mov file. Then, perhaps, people could see what's happening. Too much to do.
Stepper switch recollections by former NZ switch tech Stephen Crowsen. Click here to give it a glance. I haven't illustrated it yet, nor linked it to all things Strowger at this site, but do give this article a read. Not just on switching. Gives other good comments on telecoms. Thanks, Stephen, for contributing and letting others learn from your experiences.
Site re-do work continues and this morning I am off to the vet to get my cat looked at. Again. Arrgh.
Click to view the larger image (internal link to a bigger picture)
"Tom. I hadn't seen this Ericsson photograph before. I recognize that car interior, it's an early 1960's (or late 1950's) Mercedes Benz 190 or 220 sedan. We had several. Those had a curious speedometer, it's a vertical stick which goes higher the faster you go, like a thermometer, and changes color from green to yellow to red as well as having stripes on some of the colors. That's why the speedometer housing sticks up so far." Geoff Fors (internal link)
New pages:
Cell phones and privacy (internal link)
That lady in the pool (internal link)
Revised page:
Digital Wireless Basics: Mobile Phone History: Mobile Telephone Photos (internal link)
Q. Is it possible for someone to listen in on my cell phone call?
A. Possible but not practical. Today's digital cell phones are nearly impossible to monitor. Certain federal intelligence agencies and the wireless carrier itself might be able to listen in but even then it would be extremely difficult. Let's not consider, then, targets of the FBI or CIA. What about ordinary folks?
Wireless to wireless calls
All digital phones like GSM/PCS types, ones that use a smart chip, are essentially impossible to monitor over the air. They use a strong encryption scheme which encodes voice traffic flowing between the mobile and the cell site. Two people communicating with each other, each using a GSM/PCS phone, should have little to worry about. Older analog cellular telephones, though, can be easily monitored with a scanning radio or another cell phone, one that's been modified to do that. This brings up a problem: you both may have a digital phone, but they may not be operating in digital mode. (continues here -->)
Q. Is there a way to look through all the images at your site?
A. Hmm. Go to Google's image search engine:
http://images.google.com/ (external link)
Then enter this line of text into the query field:
site:www.privateline.com privateline.com
Doing so returns 801 images! It's really interesting, you can visually browse through the site, instead of seeing it from a text based, web page point of view. Click on any of the images and you get put on the page that graphic is located. In The Future I'll try to have a page at my site that opens this search page. As Alice would have said, "What's a website without pictures?"
I'm stopping original writing this month to concentrate on building a new site for privateline.com. The tube and transistor article I wanted to write must wait until January. I simply cannot keep working on this website in this way, with its maintenance hours out of control. But this means good things for everybody. You'll get an easier to read and navigate website and I will lower my maintenance time by over 90%. More on this later.
Speaking of controlling hours and costs, did everybody see this image three months ago? You might think it's a cellular radio tower on fire. Nonsense, this is Greece trying to control their Olympic costs by constructing an alternative Olympic torch. :-) Click on this link or the image itself to bring up a bigger picture.
Welcome back. Hope you had a good weekend. In Northern California we had some rain and snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Kind of gloomy and dark. Indoor days. Didn't do any hiking but I will on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Here's a good way to browse design patents. Put in what you want to look for and then add the important phrase: ornamental design. Select the quick search option at the patent office:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/search-bool.html (external link),
and you'll see this form:
Put in what you are looking for, even if it is garbage disposals, the words ornamental design, and then your date range. Only patents from 1976 on can be searched this way. The patents before then haven't yet been made keyword searchable. Try as many different keywords as you can. For public telephones try COCOT, payphone, paystation, and so on. It's great fun looking but it will take the tools I describe below and much time. Save this task for when you do have time to fool around. Like at work.