Re: Telephone Ringers: how & why

floyd@xxxxxxxxxx (Floyd L. Davidson) writes:

When a subscriber instrument on a multiple-party line
was installed at a customer's location, how did the
craftsman get a good electrical connection to ground so
that the ringer would operate properly ? Would they
clamp onto a cold-water pipe coming in from the street,
drive a ground rod, tap into the ground connection on
the electrical panel, ...? For that matter, wasn't an
electrical ground required at each subscriber location
[single or multiple party] for the line protector ?

They were (are) required to drive a ground rod. The
difference now is that only two wires, tip and ring, are
required to be extended to the actual telephone set,
where as with a party line phone using that method there
had to be 3 wires, with the ground also going to the
telset.

Well, sorta.... They started out that way. They drove a ground, and
tagged it.

Worked fine for years, until some idiots started putting transistors out
there in the world. And even then, as long as the phone sat on insulated
feet... But take anything line-powered, such as the 1A1/1A2 keysystem.
They'd have TWO grounds, one from the rod, another from the utility
plug. Ooops..

So Ma had a big campaign preaching MGN -- Multi-ground neutral aka the
power meter ground. All protectors went to the power meter/utility
grounding point. They even had a little film every installer got to watch
in class, and a modified BSP.

And re: 4 party ringing; Bell used gas tubes. One party had one in
series with the ringer, the other across it, I think. To ring the
first you put the ring voltage atop a ??100V+ bias, to excite those
tubes into conduction.

Then they repeated it on the other [tip vs ring] side for the other
2 parties.


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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Telephone Ringers: how & why
    ... difference now is that only two wires, tip and ring, are ... where as with a party line phone using that method there ... Bell used gas tubes. ... series with the ringer, the other across it, I think. ...
    (comp.dcom.telecom.tech)
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    ... The ring current simply flows between the A and B lines. ... The purpose of the ring cap is to block the ringer from 'seeing' the DC line ... properly if a ringer is not present on any given circuit. ...
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