Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!hybrid!scifi!bywater!uunet!bu.edu!telecom-request
From: Jim.Redelfs@iugate.unomaha.edu (Jim Redelfs)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: No Outgoing Calls Allowed ... Why?
Message-ID: <72168@bu.edu.bu.edu>
Date: 12 Jan 91 08:55:53 GMT
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> The other employee told me that the
> two phones were somehow linked with the payphone in the lobby (on the
> same line), and that's why the two phones can't be used to initiate
> calls.
> The two phones are each typical AT&T wall-mount model type phone. Does
> anyone have any information about this?

Traditionally, extensions off of Semi-Pub coins are dial-less sets.

Some time ago, I installed a B1M (Measured Business) loop to the pizza
kitchen of a convenience store.  I installed the wall jack and they
hung a 554-type DIAL-LESS set.  Obviously, the line is intended for
incoming-only calls, but it was a "plain" line - allowing OUTgoing
with a dial-equipped phone.

As for the "hunting" on the Semi-Pubs: I've never heard of or seen
that!


JR

 Copernicus V1.02
 Elkhorn, NE [200:5010/666.14] (200:5010/2.14)


[Moderator's Note: Long, long ago, in a different place, a nerdy
ninth-grade student fixed up a neat deal for his uncle who owned the
drugstore on the corner: He took a two-line turn-button phone and
installed it in the pharmacy area in the back. One side of the turn
button was the pharmacy phone line; the other side of the turn button
was an extension from the semi-pub coin phone booth in the front of
the store. As we all know, those old two-line turn-button phones had a
third pair/set of contacts in them: the turn-button could be pressed
down (on release it would spring back up) and this normally was used
to sound a buzzer at another extension. But the smart-alecky kid used
it to momentarily send one side of the line to ground on the pay phone
pair ... this was long before the 'dialtone first' era ... and the
resulting dialtone on the pay phone line saved his uncle (but mostly
him) the 'nuisance' of having to walk to the front of the store and
deposit a nickle in the coin slot to get the same dialtone. He could
dial from the two-line phone in back of course ... then one day the
telephone inspector came around to see if 'something might be wrong
with this instrument'. Panic! The wires were quickly clipped at the
pharmacy end and never reconnected. The inspector, a fellow with a big
red nose and a gleam in his eye said he hoped he'd not have to visit
these premises again; that there'd be hell to pay if he returned. The
lad's uncle, not being a regular reader of telecom, had known nothing
about the 'mystery third position' on the turn-button ... only that
his smart nephew had fixed up a new phone for him in his office.
There was hell to pay, alright, and it did not require a return visit
by the inspector.  PAT]