What does this thing do?

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › What does this thing do?

raytaylor

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#116050 16-Apr-2013 20:37

Question for ya
Cant find the chorus forum so posting here.

What does this do?

The knob on the top appears to be a switch of some sort.

Ray Taylor

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#800484 16-Apr-2013 20:39

It's the ON and OFF switch for the internet

Psilan

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#800486 16-Apr-2013 20:41

DO IT.

You might need to find an old post office employee to fix it after.

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knoydart

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#800493 16-Apr-2013 20:49

Obligatory IT crowd reference me thinks

Edit: tried to get the BB code working but not working

[Moderator edit (MF): working just fine. Added it for you]

richms

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#800511 16-Apr-2013 21:04

Friend had a switch like that at their work. It was to turn a big bell in the factory off and on when the phone rang.

Richard rich.ms

DrCheese

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#800517 16-Apr-2013 21:09

Looks like a placebo button. Keep pressing it.

David.

raytaylor

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#800518 16-Apr-2013 21:10

knoydart: Obligatory IT crowd reference me thinks

Edit: tried to get the BB code working but not working

I wish they made more of that show.
And included more of the dark sysadmin. Norman was his name i think?

Ray Taylor

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raytaylor

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#800520 16-Apr-2013 21:14

Oh no his name is Richmond.

"Richmonds out of his room, hes supposed to be in his room, why is he out of his room"
http://youtu.be/nscm9f7Qf_g?t=2m58s

Ray Taylor

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sbiddle

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#800523 16-Apr-2013 21:25

It's just a two way switch. Normally used for extension bells (to turn it on/off) or to activate a night service style service by diverting a line to another phone.

freitasm

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#800542 16-Apr-2013 21:42

Trust Sbiddle to come here and kill the fun.

;)

Technofreak

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#800546 16-Apr-2013 21:45

As previously mentioned it looks like a bell switch or a night switch for transferring the phone line to another phone. It shows it's vintage with the NZPO label. I remember the change from NZPO to Telecom and I haven't worked there for about 22 years.

The grey cover will pop off and slide up over the lever if you ease it out from the bottom.

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blakamin

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#800549 16-Apr-2013 21:49

raytaylor: Oh no his name is Richmond.

"Richmonds out of his room, hes supposed to be in his room, why is he out of his room"
http://youtu.be/nscm9f7Qf_g?t=2m58s

He's on the UK music quiz "Never mind the buzzcocks" quite a bit.

raytaylor

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#800551 16-Apr-2013 21:51

I knew of a guy who used to have a job at the gisborne telephone exchange whose job was to enable the redirect on various subscriber lines.

In those days it was a manual soldering job for each line on a friday evening, and to put it back on monday morning so it was really only the local doctors etc.

I took this picture in a doctors office, so i was thinking they may have overcome the manual soldering issue by bridging the incoming line to a tie-line going to the doctors home address. Or something like that.

your right. he did kill my fun. stupid extension bells.

Ray Taylor

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Technofreak

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#800559 16-Apr-2013 22:06

raytaylor: I knew of a guy who used to have a job at the gisborne telephone exchange whose job was to enable the redirect on various subscriber lines.

In those days it was a manual soldering job for each line on a friday evening, and to put it back on monday morning so it was really only the local doctors etc.

I took this picture in a doctors office, so i was thinking they may have overcome the manual soldering issue by bridging the incoming line to a tie-line going to the doctors home address. Or something like that.

your right. he did kill my fun. stupid extension bells.

I knew that process well, strapping two numbers together, people used to do the same when they went on holiday so their phone could be answered at a friends place. Some of the bigger places had technical assistants doing these sorts of jobs but where I was us technicians got to do it.

I doubt this switch would have been for the same purpose mainly due to the cost of leasing two extra cable pairs. One back to the exchanges and another to the residence. The more practical way of doing this in those days was to have the phone line going to a phone at the residence and one at the surgery with a switch at the residence to connect that phone when needed. This uses one less cable pair.

It was more likely used to switch the phone to another place in the building or switch on/off extension bells.

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Technofreak

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#800562 16-Apr-2013 22:09

Have you tried it to see what happens?

I'd say there's a pretty good chance it's left over from times past and doesn't do anything anymore.

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InstallerUFB

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#800640 17-Apr-2013 06:12

theses switchs had multipule uses depending on what you wanted to do - there were even books full of instructions on how to wire them up

in this case it does look like its been used as a bell cut key/ extn on off key

if it has a 3 position switch ? it may be an old data circuit test key (through, open, loop back)

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