[BC] putting phone calls on the air

[John E. Hingsbergen]

At 06:16 PM 9/17/2006, you wrote:
>Barry
>
>Your e-mail prompted me to reach about five feet, open a plastic 
>storage container and voila !!! there-in resides a Heathkit hybrid 
>phone patch Model HD-15  (must be hi-definition) .  Traditional 
>Heathkit green with gray top and sides.  Worked many years at one of 
>our flame-throwers.  Still would work for me but phone-patching is 
>pretty much history on ham radio.

This has been a fun and informative thread.  Thanks to all for sharing.

Don't tell the phone cops but I still have in my possession a Western 
Electric rotary dial phone with push-to-talk handset and lift-up 
switch-hook plunger and rotary handset disconnect switch  plus a 
Model 30A audio coupler.

This rig was left behind after a remote broadcast in, I believe, the 
summer of 1971.   It had been left by the phone company as ordered 
for the broadcast and was there waiting when we arrived to set up. (I 
was the very young remote tech for this event.)   After the 
broadcast, we left it where we found it.  A couple days later, I 
stopped by the site to fund it still there and took it into my 
possession for safe-keeping.

A label on the coupler says, "Telephone Company Property: Not for 
Sale."  I never sold.  Never bought it either.  I've just been 
keeping it until the phone company comes by to get it.

It works great still today for grabbing phone "bites" for news 
stories in my basement home studio.   Since it'll work either 
direction, it also works great for sending audio down the line.

This approach, using a dialout line and coupler, was obviously the 
precursor of the more recent remote phone mixers and even POTS 
codecs.  Of course, the remote in which we used it was just a couple 
miles from the station so I'm sure it sounded pretty good, given the 
limited capability of unaltered POTS.


John E. Hingsbergen
Program Director
npr at 88.5
WMUB, Oxford

513-529-5894
cell:  513-330-2222

visit and listen to WMUB online at:  http://www.wmub.org