Memories of a Michigan Bell Telephone installer.

[dguy4evr]

Worked for Ma Bell in the "Valley" district for approximately two years in the late sixties. This was a time when the touch tone phone was in it's infancy. Worst jobs were given to the rookies such as removing old units from homes. Ma Bell owned all the equipment at the time you rented the phones and a lot of people moved and left the phones in the house or took them with them. Got a lot of doors slammed in my face on this job. Another was a complaint that a phone quit ringing. A lot of times this was due to roaches packed so tightly in the phone that the clapper would not move! [[God's honest truth!) We always tapped the connector block cover on the baseboard to chase the roaches out before removing it. My district was bordered by Gratiot on the North, the river on the South, McDougal on West, and St. Jean on the East. Another problem was dealing with the wharf rats that made their homes in the Michigan basements on Concord and Grand Blvd. I was told that they came in via the ships at the Uniroyal plant. All in all, it was a good job, just didn't pay well. Worked with some great guys over at the Hart Street office.
Anyone have any similar memories?

[Lowell]

Similar experiences different occupation for me. Back when I quit school forever to be an artist and drove Sears delivery truck for eight years I had my share of ick factor incidents, city and suburbs. Pigs are pigs the same everywhere.

Since we delivered many washers and dryers I spent a lot of time in basements. Some we entered we had to retreat after a few steps. Those basements would be covered with dog droppings and so saturated with dog urine that the ammonia from it stung one's nostrils and burned the eyes.

Like you we would then get yelled at by the customer when we told them they had to clean and air our their basement if they wanted us to return and deliver. Fortunately we had a union and company behind us back then.

[catch22]

I can relate. I hired in MBT as an installer in 1973. Worked on the west side, mostly the Webster [[Hogarth) and Vermont exchange areas, roughly the area bounded by Eight Mile, the Lodge, Livernois, Dexter, Joy Road and the Southfield Freeway. The senior guys worked mostly in the Kenwood [[Redford) exchange serving the far NW side and Redford Township. Like you, I hated the forced disconnects [["denials" in MBT lingo). The cable in the Webster was in bad shape; this coupled with the large number of houses getting more than one line resulted in me using miles of drop wire. I hated the smell of the roach houses. Also, the houses with raw sewage in the basement. But, the people were mostly nice, since I was there to get their phones working. We only had a limited amount of Touch-Tone service until all the exchanges went to ESS in the late 70s.

It didn't pay well at first, but it got better later. I switched to PBX installation in 1980 [[same area), and after the dust settled when the Bell System split happened, I took a transfer to AT&T Communications [[old Long Lines) in the Bell complex at Michigan and Cass in November 1984. In 1991 I accepted a promotion to management and took an early retirement offer in 1998, retiring as a second level manager.

[dguy4evr]

Went into a basement where the drain pipe for the toilet had been broken, human feces, toilet paper and urine draining onto the floor. Came down with jaundice and spent a long time in hospital. Called it into dispatch, don't know if anything was done about it. Couldn't prove the jaundice was caused by this. Doctor said it was probably caused by this.
Had a 30ft. extension ladder stolen from a pole while I was spurring another pole down the alley from where I had the ladder. Expensive ladder too. The little rug rats were fast!! By the time I got down from the pole and removed my spurs, [[hard to run with them on.)they were long gone. [[As Ernie would say.) Had fun explaining this to my supervisor.

[dguy4evr]

The cable in the Webster was in bad shape; this coupled with the large number of houses getting more than one line resulted in me using miles of drop wire.

It didn't pay well at first, but it got better later. I switched to PBX installation in 1980 [[same area), and after the dust settled when the Bell System split happened, I took a transfer to AT&T Communications [[old Long Lines) in the Bell complex at Michigan and Cass in November 1984. In 1991 I accepted a promotion to management and took an early retirement offer in 1998, retiring as a second level manager.

The cables were terrible in the Valley district also. I too, ran a lot of service drop. Sometimes we had to go for or five spans to bring a good pair to a house. Still had a lot of party lines due to this. Remember having to rewire the ringers to match the proper party line. Glad you were able to stay and get a retirement from there. How long was it before they switched over from running jumpers in the main frame at the central switching station?

[catch22]

The cables were terrible in the Valley district also. I too, ran a lot of service drop. Sometimes we had to go for or five spans to bring a good pair to a house. Still had a lot of party lines due to this. Remember having to rewire the ringers to match the proper party line. Glad you were able to stay and get a retirement from there. How long was it before they switched over from running jumpers in the main frame at the central switching station?

Ugh. Party lines. Nobody ever liked to hear the news that they were stuck with one, even on a temporary basis. Rewiring the ringers on Princess or Trimline phones was always a treat.

Even after the switch to ESS, they still needed jumpers on the mainframe from the cable pair termination to the line equipment [[ESS replacement for "panel and jack"). It did eliminate the second jumper from the P&J to the phone number appearance. But they did try [[with limited success) to leave the jumpers in and re-use the CO equipment for the next occupant [["cut-through").

Working in the winter wasn't much fun. It was hard to dress for "hanging on a pole waiting for the test man in 20-degree weather" and "running IW inside a house with the thermostat set to 80 and leaky steam heat" all in the same job.

I also got a quick education on just how many houses had guns out in the open. Once I had to request a nice old gent to move his Thompson out of the way so I could run wire. And just how many people came to the door wearing ... not much at all.

[Jimaz]

Those old Western Electric phones were built like tanks. I'd hate to get hit by one.

I tapped into one and installed a socket to the switch hook circuit so I could plug in wires from a relay in my TRS-80 computer. I wrote the software then tweaked it until I had the fastest demon dialer in the west! It was relentless. When it detected a carrier it honked a horn to let me know it had connected.

---

Here's an old internet fable that may or may not be true but it's funny:

The Psychic Dog

It's common practice in England to ring a telephone by sending extra voltage across one side of the two wire circuit and ground [[earth in England). When the subscriber answers the phone, it switches to the two wire circuit for the conversation. This method allows two parties on the same line to be signaled without disturbing each other.

Anyway, an elderly lady with several pets called to say that her telephone failed to ring when her friends called; and that on the few occasions when it did ring her dog always barked first. The telephone repairman proceeded to the scene, curious to see this psychic dog.

He climbed a nearby telephone pole, hooked in his test set, and dialed the subscriber's house. The phone didn't ring. He tried again. The dog barked loudly, followed by a ringing telephone.

1. Climbing down from the pole, the telephone repairman found:
2. The dog was tied to the telephone system's ground post via an iron chain and collar.
3. The dog was receiving 90 volts of signaling current.
4. After several such jolts, the dog would start barking and urinating on the ground.
5. The wet ground now completed the circuit and the phone would ring.

Which shows you that some problems can be fixed by just pissing on them. But only temporarily.

[Ray1936]

Great stories, you guys! Thanks for sharing!

[Bobl]

Cleaning out a vacated apartment at the old Forest Arms Apartments, 1970, came upon two working phones and six more new ones stashed in a corner of the bedroom. Was there a market for these phones, back then?

[dguy4evr]

Cleaning out a vacated apartment at the old Forest Arms Apartments, 1970, came upon two working phones and six more new ones stashed in a corner of the bedroom. Was there a market for these phones, back then?

Hell yes! All someone had to do was disconnect the red ringer lead. This kept the phone company from reading via ringer capacitance the number of phones in the residence. You could use them for extension phones anywhere you could hear the ringer on the legal phone.
We used to get orders from bookies to install 6 black desk phones, had to use 6 pair service drop from the pole. Pretty obvious when the phones were all set up on a table in the same room!
Guess Ma Bell had a don't ask, don't tell rule back then.

[Bobl]

Hell yes! All someone had to do was disconnect the red ringer lead. This kept the phone company from reading via ringer capacitance the number of phones in the residence. You could use them for extension phones anywhere you could hear the ringer on the legal phone.
We used to get orders from bookies to install 6 black desk phones, had to use 6 pair service drop from the pole. Pretty obvious when the phones were all set up on a table in the same room!
Guess Ma Bell had a don't ask, don't tell rule back then.

I am not surprised. The guy just disappeared. Used to see him daily at the neighborhood store [[Henry Drugs) where I worked: "Pint of J&B, pack of Camels". Just vanished. The refrigerator had month old food inside. Perhaps he took some numbers or gambling funds?

[dguy4evr]

Ugh. Party lines. Nobody ever liked to hear the news that they were stuck with one, even on a temporary basis. Rewiring the ringers on Princess or Trimline phones was always a treat.

Even after the switch to ESS, they still needed jumpers on the mainframe from the cable pair termination to the line equipment [[ESS replacement for "panel and jack"). It did eliminate the second jumper from the P&J to the phone number appearance. But they did try [[with limited success) to leave the jumpers in and re-use the CO equipment for the next occupant [["cut-through").

Working in the winter wasn't much fun. It was hard to dress for "hanging on a pole waiting for the test man in 20-degree weather" and "running IW inside a house with the thermostat set to 80 and leaky steam heat" all in the same job.

I also got a quick education on just how many houses had guns out in the open. Once I had to request a nice old gent to move his Thompson out of the way so I could run wire. And just how many people came to the door wearing ... not much at all.

I ran a long section of IW from a wall phone mounted on the screen behind the front seats to a working pair of wires using alligator clips so I could sit in the truck while waiting on a test man. Came in handy on those 20 degree windy days. I would then scurry up the pole, connect my test set to the same pair and work with the test man. Just remembered that one!!!! There were times we had to wait 30 to 40 minutes for a test man.

[GMan]

---

Here's an old internet fable that may or may not be true but it's funny:

The Psychic Dog

It's common practice in England to ring a telephone by sending extra voltage across one side of the two wire circuit and ground [[earth in England). When the subscriber answers the phone, it switches to the two wire circuit for the conversation. This method allows two parties on the same line to be signaled without disturbing each other.

Anyway, an elderly lady with several pets called to say that her telephone failed to ring when her friends called; and that on the few occasions when it did ring her dog always barked first. The telephone repairman proceeded to the scene, curious to see this psychic dog.

He climbed a nearby telephone pole, hooked in his test set, and dialed the subscriber's house. The phone didn't ring. He tried again. The dog barked loudly, followed by a ringing telephone.

1. Climbing down from the pole, the telephone repairman found:
2. The dog was tied to the telephone system's ground post via an iron chain and collar.
3. The dog was receiving 90 volts of signaling current.
4. After several such jolts, the dog would start barking and urinating on the ground.
5. The wet ground now completed the circuit and the phone would ring.

Which shows you that some problems can be fixed by just pissing on them. But only temporarily.

HaHaHa... I can tell you I almost wet myself when tying an extension line to the main block and an incoming call came in. I was about ten at the time. I remember when the phone repair man had to come in a month later because our line was intermittent. Seems you have to use insulated staples to secure the phone pair to the floor joists.

[jerrytimes]

How did party lines work exactly?

[dguy4evr]

How did party lines work exactly?

In our district we had three type of service. A ring party line came in on the ring or positive line and completed the circuit through the ground, a tip party line came in on the tip or negative side of the line and completed the circuit through the ground, the individual service came in through the ring or positive side and completed the circuit through the tip or negative side. You could not have a individual service with any party lines. Did not need a ground wire for individual service unless you were running transformer voltage for a lighted dial from a remote location. The most lines you could have on a single pair of wires was two for our area.
Hope this helps.

[dguy4evr]

The cable in the Webster was in bad shape; this coupled with the large number of houses getting more than one line resulted in me using miles of drop wire.

Reminds me of the time the city tried to save money by purchasing Japanese PIC cable. The cable pairs were all one color! If the ID bindings were gone [[Which they often times were), you had to probe each individual wire to find your dial or buzzer tone. This was a total nightmare, especially when you were on a pole in 20 degree weather and your fingers weren't moving too easily.

Another story was the burglar alarms for businesses used the phone lines, were supposed to have red plastic caps over the terminals.[[Know where this is going??????)On more than one occasion I found myself surrounded by our men in blue due to my accidently shorting out a silent alarm!

[catch22]

Reminds me of the time the city tried to save money by purchasing Japanese PIC cable. The cable pairs were all one color! If the ID bindings were gone [[Which they often times were), you had to probe each individual wire to find your dial or buzzer tone. This was a total nightmare, especially when you were on a pole in 20 degree weather and your fingers weren't moving too easily.

Another story was the burglar alarms for businesses used the phone lines, were supposed to have red plastic caps over the terminals.[[Know where this is going??????)On more than one occasion I found myself surrounded by our men in blue due to my accidently shorting out a silent alarm!

Japanese PIC! I forgot all about that junk. We only had a couple of neighborhoods around Schoolcraft and Evergreen that had it, and it was a nightmare. It was replaced with normal 16-pair cans eventually.

Here's my favorite alarm story [[and I'm sure that Ray will get a laugh from this one): This was after I had moved to PBX. Another installer and I were working at a Detroit Bank & Trust branch on Grand River just west of Lahser. They were remodeling, and moving out of a space in the storefront adjacent to them at the same time. I had removed the old phones in the annex [[this was key sets on old 26-pair binding-post IW) and I noticed there was one jumper left on pair 26. I removed it, and heard a relay operate in the Diebold alarm box next to the phone equipment in the basement. Those idiots had used our wire to extend their holdup alarm button circuit into next door, and I had inadvertently activated it. I ran upstairs to let the bank manager know what happened, only to find several police cars coming to a screeching halt outside the front door, and about 6 policemen enter the building with guns drawn. After all the dust settled we all had a good laugh, but it was a little tense there for a couple of minutes.

[dguy4evr]

One time when we were doing line sheets, that is, transferring service in the alley from an old aerial cable to a new one on the opposite side of the alley. I was up on a pole when I heard a lot of screaming and commotion coming from a house in front of me. The back door burst open and a naked man came sprinting out followed by a very irate woman brandishing a large butcher knife. Seems his wife came home early from work and found him with the baby sitter. Luckily he was a speedier sprinter than his wife, [[Not burdened by any loose clothing, would be my guess.)because she seemed awfully motivated at the time. Wonder where he ran to? This is bringing back a lot of memories.