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Disclaimer Notice:
This file is presented as an INFORMATIONAL file only.
Do not try any of the things mentioned in the text file
as some of them are illegal to do. The bbs operator take
NO responsibilty.
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How Ma Bell Works
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In this article, I will first describe the termination,
wiring, and terminal hardware most commonly used in the Bell
system, and I will include section on methods of using them.
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LOCAL NETWORK
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The local telephone network between the central
office/exchange and the telephone subscribers can be briefly
described as follows:
From the central office (or local exchange) of a certain
prefix(es), underground area trunks go to each area that has that
prefix (Usually more than one prefix per area.) At every few
streets or tract areas, the underground cables surface. They then
go to the telephone pole (or back underground, depending on the
area) and then to the subsribers house (or in the case of an
apartment building or mutliline business, to a splitter or dis-
tribution box/panel).
Now that we have the basics, I'll try and go in-depth on the
subject.
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UNDERGROUND CABLES
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These are sometimes inter-office trunks, but usually in a
residential area they are trunk lines that go to bridging heads
or distribution cases. The cables are about 2-3 inches thick
(varies), and are either in a metal or pvc-type pipe (or
similiar). Rarely (maybe not in some remote rural areas) are the
cables just 'alone' in the ground. Instead they are usually in
an underground cement tunnel (resembles a small sewer or storm-
drain.) The manholes are >heavy< and will say 'Bell system' on
them. they can be opened with a 1/2 inch wide crowbar (Hookside)
inserted in the top rectangular hole. There are ladder rungs to
help you climb down. You will see the cable pipes on the wall,
with the blue and white striped one being the inter-office trunk
(at least in my area). The others are local lines, and are
usually marked or color coded. There is almost always a posted
color code chart on the wall, not to mention Telco manuals de-
scribing the cables and terminals, so I need not get into detail.
Also, there is usually some kind of test equipment, and often
Bell test sets are left in there.
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BRIDGING HEADS
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The innocent-looking grayish-green boxes. These can be
either trunk bridges or bridging for residences. The major trunk
bridging heads are usually larger, and they have the 'Western
Electric' logo at the bottom, whereas the normal bridging heads
(which may be different in some areas-depending on the company
you are served by. GTE B.H.'s look slightly different. Also, do
not be fooled by sprinkler boxes!) They can be found in just
about every city.
To open a bridging head: if it is locked (and you're feeling
destructive), put a hammer or crowbar (the same one you used on
the manhole) in the slot above the top hinge of the right door.
Pull hard, and the door will rip off. Very effective! If it isn't
locked (as usual), take a 7/8 inch hex socket and with it, turn
the bolt about 1/8 of a turn to the right (you should hear a
spring release inside). Holding the bolt, turn the handle all the
way to the left and pull out.
To Check for a test-set (which are often left by Bell employees),
go inside - First check for a test-set (which are often left
by Bell employees). There should be a panel of terminals and
wires. Push the panel back about an inch or so, and rotate the
top latch (round with a flat section) downward. Release the
panel and it will fall all the way forward. There is usually a
large amount of wire and extra terminals. The test-sets are
often hidden here, so don$ overlook it (Manuals, as well, are
sometimes placed in the head). On the right door is a metal box
of alligator clips. Take a few (Compliments of Bell.). On each
door is a useful little round metal device. (Says 'insert gently'
or' clamp gently - do not overtighten' etc..) On the front of
the disc, you should find two terminals. These are for your test
set. (If you dont have one, dont despair -I'll show you ways to
make basic test sets later in this article).
Hook the ring (-) wire to the 'r' terminal; and the tip (+)
wire to the other. (By the way, an easy way to determine the
correct polarity is with a 1.5v LED. Tap it to the term. pair,
if it doesnt light, switch the poles until it does. When it
lights,find the longer of the two LED poles: This one will be on
the tip wire (+). Behind the disc is a coiled up cord. This
should have two alligator clips on it.. Its very useful, because
you dont have to keep connecting and disconnecting the fone (test
set) itself, and the clips work nicely.
On the terminal board, there should be about 10 screw
terminals per side. Follow the wires, and you can see which
cable pairs are active. Hook the clips to the terminal pair, and
you're set! Dial out if you want, or just listen (If someone's
on theline). Later, I'll show you a way to set up a true 'tap'
that will let the person dial out on his line and receive calls
as normal, and you can listen in the whole time. More about this
later...
On major prefix-area bridging heads, you can see 'local
loops' ,which are two cable pairs (cable pair = ring+tip, a fone
line) that are directly connected to each other on the terminal
board. These 'cheap loops' as they are called, do not work
nearLy as well as the existing ones set up in the switching
hardware at the exchange office. (Try scanning your prefixes'
00xx to 99xx #'s.) The tone sides will announce themselves with
the 1008 hz loop tone, and the hang side will give no response.
The first person should dial the 'hang' side, and the other
person dial the tone side, and the tone should stop if you have
got the right loop.)
If you want to find the number of the line that you're on,
you can either try to decipher the 'bridging log' (or whatever),
which is on the left door. If that doesnt work, you can use the
follwing:
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ANI # (Automatic Number ID)
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This is a Telco test number that reports to you the number
that youre calling from (It's the same, choppy 'Bell bitch' voice
that you get when you reach a disconnected #)
For the 213 NPA - Dial 1223
408 NPA - Dial 760
914 NPA - Dial 990
These are extremely useful when messing with any kind of
line terminals, house boxes, etc.
Now that we have bridging heads wired, we can go on... (dont
forget to close and latch the box after all... Wouldnt want to GE
and Telco people mad, now,would we?)
Continued in: Ma Bell part II