On Apr 1, 3:33*pm, Stephen Furley wrote:


Somewhat different here. *0 was not used for the operator, at least
not in my time, the operator was 100. 0 was used for subscriber trunk
dialing. *. . . [snip]

Your reply came through fine. Interesting information, thanks for
sharing it.


Out ringing current is 75 V 25 Hz., rather than your 90 V 20 Hz. *but
this is close enough for your straight line fingers to work here, and
ours will work over there.

I remember in imported British TV shows, ringing phones had the double
ring (ring ring pause . . .) as compared to our single ring. Our
office building was eventually set up so that outside calls got the
double ring while inside retained the single ring. Key system
telephone sets, which have tone ringers, can be programmed with all
sorts of ringing codes, including multiple tones.


As for the dials, 10 pps is standard in
both places. *The break ratio is different, I think ours is 66% and
yours is 60%, or have I got that the wrong way round?

The modem manual allows the user to issue AT codes to change that
ratio. When I had rotary service, I changed the pulse rate to 20 pps
(left make/break alone).

I believe US exchanges that had panel, crossbar, or ESS could handle
20 pps, while step was limited to 10 pps.


Well into the 1980s some US rail lines still had magneto (local
battery) phones for wayside phones. I think they were still made
until that time. Modern ones had a small crank in place of the dial.