-=> mark lewis wrote to Kurt Weiske <=-

 ml> i don't think i've heard about that one but i do know that POTS used a
 ml> positive ground and you could stick on lead of a buttset into the
 ml> ground and one on a tip terminal in a pedestal, get dialtone, and make
 ml> a call... it might be a ring terminal, though... i forget which one was
 ml> ground...

If memory serves, ring was ground. Most payphones were ground start
lines, to keep people from plugging in a home telephone into a pay
phone jack and get dial tone. That made for a good story.

Red's Java House is a coffee shop/restaurant along the piers in San
Francisco - they started selling burgers to longshoremen back in the
1930s. When I was doing telecom in the late 80s, there was a story
about the pay phone outside of Red's, that kept getting trouble
tickets. When the y looked at the phone, it worked fine. More tickets
came in. It wasn't until someone noticed that the tech who installed
the phone ran a copper wire down the piling into the San Francisco bay
that the isolated the problem.

When the tide came in, the bay water provided the ground. At low tide,
the wire was hanging in the air, and no ground.

They took a more civilized approach to grounding (using a water pipe)
and all was well.



... Do you ever see inconsistencies in your world?
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