These white papers were written by Stephen Macke.
Public Safety Radio Project (PDF)
Public Safety Guide for Acquiring Interoperability Communication Systems (PDF)

The article can be found here: Letter and Number System

It is a must read for any phone number exchange hobbiest.

When keying in a card number, the operator would key in the first 10 digits, then had to pause, until the lower display went dark and the number appeared in the upper display, the operator then keyed the last 4 digits and pressed Start. If the screen went dark, the card was valid and if the keyed number flashed, the card was invalid or miskeyed.

Interesting side note, there was one console that had been modified to handle ship to shore, complete with radio access. Coos Bay and La Grande were very small toll centers, comprised of 24 positions and 12 positions respectively.

They converted to TSD from #3 tollboards back in the early 70s, a full five years before GTE started introducing TSPS. Interesting, these small offices were automated before the GTE network as a whole.

I understand TSD was a stand alone switch and had no remote option and TSPS worked remotely with the originating switches. Also, interesting, the TSD offices could not dial international, they had to call Beaverton Inward (TSPS) and we placed the call for them

Ron Briggs

http://foster.stonedcoder.org/~i-ball/telecom/Telecom/Manuals/Nortel/Manuals/NT-TOPS_MPX_operator_guide.pdf

http://www.candsl.com/~bierman/tops.php

The second one has errors under "Mechanization to help the customer". When he mentions OSPS, he is actually referring to Nortel's Toll Service Desk.

I'm fascinated with the mechanization of operator services from the earliest of times. If anyone has information on PPCS, cordless "A" switchboards utilized with panel systems of the early 1920's, the British CSS1 cordless switchboard from the 1950's, or GTE's verson of the tollboard computer, MECOBS (some call it ACBOS), I would be
ecstatic.

Is it me, or should someone or a group of people write a book on the mechanization of operator services? I would be happy to help and contribute and be a key player. I'm sure all the information we would need is "out there" among private individuals and in public libraries.

Spokane public library has a multiple volume set of books about the history and development of telephony, including a volume devoted to operator services. I don't recall if they were Bell or AT&T publications, they were one or the other. I can remember working graveyard at Beaverton (Oregon) TSPS 20 years ago and finding these fascinating huge old dusty cordboard protocol notebooks in a cabinet.

Lastly, there is a video entitled, "Phantom of the Operator". A history of telephony, women's roles in the industry
and how mechanization affected them. Here's the link for the producer's website, with good information and video clips http://artifactproductions.ca/fantome/en/film/synopsis.htm. I haven't seen the movie yet and would love to own it, but it is VERY expensive.

Just for pHun, have you seen the toll switchboard currently on eBay? It is from the Goleta (Santa Barbara) office, pre 1980 and before being outfitted with MECOBS.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ANTIQUE-TELEPHONE-OPERATOR-SWITCHBOARD_W0QQitemZ230127585565QQihZ013QQcategoryZ38037QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Ron

I was floored when I read your page on women as linemen. That’s because I was probably one of the first, if not the first! I can't believe other women were not linemen at the time. I was never up to date on controversies, however, and I knew most women in my area wouldn't want to work outside in the winter. This was in 1973 or 1974.

I worked for a small telco in northern California, high desert area. I started by transferring into the line crew by seniority from an operator. Yes, we used line cords, but I don't remember them called that. I enjoyed being an operator and had, I think three years in, so I could pretty much choose the hours and schedule that I liked to work. The lineman job came open and it sounded like fun.

I was never afraid of hard work and loved being outdoors. The job was O.K. and I got along with all the guys, and really didn't mind digging all those holes for the tie downs. I remember every time I tried to climb a tree I "scunt" out of it, just couldn't get past that bark I guess. When they let me climb I was doing it in my tennis shoes. The office manager called me in one day and drew a picture of my foot in a sock and sent it in for a pair of boots to be hand made for me. Wow, I sure liked those boots.

Happy searching.

We measure radio emissions by cycles per second or hertz. Imagine a rock thrown into a pond. Waves radiate from the point of impact. Similarly, audible waves radiate from us as we speak, as air is compressed or displaced by sound. Human speech lies principally between 100 and 250 hertz. Our hearing range extends to roughly 20,000 hertz. Musically speaking, middle “C” on the piano is at 261 hertz.

Radio transmissions are high above all of this, in the hundreds of thousands and millions of cycles per second. Some examples are an A.M. radio station signal at 560,000 hertz, an F.M. station broadcasting at 90,300,000 hertz, and a cellular telephone transmitting at 890,450,000 hertz. In actual practice, we shorten these long numbers by using (and then abbreviating) the words kilohertz and megahertz. A kilohertz is a thousand cycles per second, a megahertz a million. The three figures noted would thus be 560 KHz, 90.3 MHz, and 890.450 MHz respectively. These numbers are known as frequencies. And nearly every frequency in the radio spectrum is assigned a use.

In the United States the Federal Communications Commission assigns and administers non-Federal radio spectrum. Cellular radio, satellite, amateur radio, land mobile (two-way business radio), and broadcasting, are some of the scores of services used by tens of millions of people to do business and to communicate. FCC radio-frequency allocations also license spectrum for emergency services. With users increasing but radio spectrum remaining fixed, there is a tremendous need to use bandwidth efficiently. More later . . .

Tom,

I came across an interesting citation today. It seems that in 1907 the King Chulalongkorn of Siam was on a visit to Norway. As a part of his travel report there is the following discussion of the potential for what we now call Mobile telephony.

"In the evening they returned to Notodden, and during dinner the king talked with Birkeland (one of the founders of the company Norsk Hydro) about the mysteries of electricity. He heard, among other things about Birkeland's idea about an electrical cannon and an idea about making rain. He also heard that Hydro had inventions and plans on telegraphic communication without wires or cables, but this project was not being pursued. As a result of this, the prophetically king wrote "It is not daring to predict that in the future there might be a portable telephone like a small personal watch. When you want to talk with someone, you can just talk into the watch and then put your ear against it to hear what the other person has said."

The Original Norwegian is: at http://www.almanakken.uio.no/temaartikler/norgesreise_2007b.html

He may have been thinking of crystal radios since it was only about this time that vacuum tubes were being developed by Fleming and De Forest in the US.

It was sold to Alcatel in the 1980's which then discontinued the North Electric name. It's last product was the DSS1210 digital switch. I worked as an installer for North Electric from 1966 thru 1971.

At that time, a powerful Democratic machine that influenced every aspect of life in the city governed Boston. Not surprisingly, its leaders took an interest in the code Boston would be assigned under the new numbering system. Telephones in the 1940s generally had a rotary dial. A premise governing the designation of three-digit area codes-- to a state, or to regions within a state-- was that densely populated areas where the incoming call volume was heavy should have mostly low numbers (meaning ones high up on the rotary dial, requiring less time to execute) while rural areas—ones that received fewer calls—should be assigned mostly higher numbers (farther down on the dial). The aim was to save time for the largest number of customers. Thus, New York City earned a 2-1-2 designation, while rural Maine received a 2-0-7 code. Because apportionment principal seemed rational, it generated relatively little contention in most states and cities as the codes were assigned.

Not so in Boston. There the Democratic machine thought the prospective apportionment would diminish their city. If the national pattern were followed, Boston residents would be forced to dial high numbers when placing calls to the western (and generally Republican) parts of Massachusetts. Meanwhile, callers to Boston from those western regions would enjoy the benefit of using lower numbers. City politicians moved to avert that disaster. In 1948
Democrats had won control of the state legislature for the first time in history, providing the city machine with even greater clout. Led by Mayor John Hynes, protests were made to New England Telephone and through it to AT&T. After negotiations, Boston gained an exception to the national plan, earning a 6-1-7 area code (high for a large city), and western Massachusetts received a lower 4-1-3. Massachusetts has added several more area codes in the decades since 1950 but the two original ones remain, examples that politics sometimes trumps technology.

Kenneth T. Palmer
Kittery Point, ME

My name is Don Capehart, I live in Corsicana,Texas and I own a Telephone and Telecommunications Collection that occupies about 10,000 square feet.

We have a history of communications that dates back to the 1880s. There are approximately 2,000 items on display and another 200,000 in storage that has been inventoried. We also have several thousand parts not included in the inventory.

I am trying to find out the best way to sell and relocate this collection, due to the health of both my wife and myself. We realize that this collection may not fit with the type of investments and collections that you deal with, but we are hoping you may be able to direct us to someone that can help.

The collection needs to be housed somewhere where it can be appreciated. Due to the extent of the collection it could be divided into smaller collections.

You may view the website at http://www.telephonemuseum.info/

If you can offer us any advice on how to sell our collection, please let me know.

My family and I would appreciate it.

Sincerely,
Don and Rita Capehart

Call records do contain the information on the FIRST site to handle the call, and the LAST site. To be more precise, most sites are divided into SECTORS, each of which serves a different geographical area. The first and last serving site AND sector is recorded on the billing record by the SWITCH. Switches are the central computer that controls the network, essentially. It is the switch that records the call
information.

California’s Sacramento County is currently switching to an all digital radio system for public health and safety providers. Dropouts and poor coverage are two of many problems with the new service. County Fire Chief Don Mette is so concerned that he has put the County on notice. The Sacramento Bee reports he has written county officials, saying, "I must advise you that if any of my personnel are injured as a result of this inefficient, ineffective, and incompetent radio system, both you, in your individual capacity and the County of Sacramento will be subjected to civil liability.” Whoa. What’s happening? Mette gave more details in his letter.

"There are many complaints about the radio going out of range or being bonked when the radio will not allow them to transmit.” The Bee said he wrote the letter after fire officials battled an apartment fire, their communications temporarily cut off. He said a fire engine had to be moved before their radios would work. “In the heat of battle you don't want to move your vehicle around,” Mette said.” Indeed. But what has this to do with digital?

One can still understand a caller on an analog signal, even as it falls apart. Despite static, fading, or breaking up, one can usually understand what the other person is trying to say. But digital cellular radio requires a certain signal level be maintained, to keep a never ending train of 0s and 1s running between the field radio and the base station or cell site. Loose too many bits and the whole call is lost. Radio folks call this the bit error rate or BER. A digital comm system drops a signal with too many errors, long before a comparable analog signal becomes unreadable. What to do? Install more base stations or sites to decrease the distance from the mobile, thus keeping signal strength up. But adding more sites is extremely expensive. When North American cellular radio went digital it required twice the cell sites as analog to provide the same coverage. More on the vagraries of digital in the coming days. Tom