Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!lll-winken!telecom-request From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: I Take Issue With Moderator Buying Radio Shack Phones Message-ID: Date: 27 Mar 91 07:06:00 GMT Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Lines: 28 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 246, Message 3 of 7 Nigel Allen writes: > And *that's* why there are lead weights in a Harmony telephone. > People who want a heavy telephone will find that manufacturers will > address that demand, but perhaps in an unexpected way. ITT's 2500-style phones are about as close as you can get now to the phones of yore. But time marches on and the components used for these otherwise excellent instruments just do not weigh what the old ones did. Capacitors are little plastic things rather than big lead-enclosed clunkers. The high-impact plactics now can be made thinner (and stronger, even so) and nothing weighed as much as bakelite. Today's more powerful permanent magnets weigh a fraction of the old Alnico things. Networks are "solid state" rather than being based on a big induction coil. Even the TT pads are one-chip affairs as opposed to those that used adjustable coils. Add all this up and you have a telephone that weighs significantly less than its older counterpart. ITT does not see fit to install weights, but I can assure everyone that the instruments are every bit as durable and work just as well as some of the antiques I have around here. They even have standard mechanical ringers -- a rarity these days! John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !