"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Have you ever used a real WE designed phantom phone line? The quality
was only dependent on the frequency response of the special phantom
transformers, and how good the support pairs were. Properly installed,
you couldn't tell the difference.

That goes against all I was taught. For sure they may have been adequate,
but in practice too many variables.

If you phantomed already bad pairs,
you got the noise and hum from both bad pairs.

Think you've answered your point...

Desperation? How about: "It was developed to provide telephone
service where it was impossible to run new lines."

It's never 'impossible' to run new lines. Otherwise none would ever be
installed. It was used as a stopgap until they were - I doubt you'd find
many in use today.


At one time it was. there are pictures of New York and other major
US cities with so many phone lines that the sidewalks were dark. They
literally ran out of room for new wire, under the original designs.
Some phantom circuits were only a few blocks, on pairs that went much
further. In some cases, the phantom circuit was cleaner than the other
pairs.


Have you ever used 100 miles of old telephone trunkline for a network
feed at a remote radio station? Or, in a pinch, connected a spare audio
console directly to a phone line to do and emergency live remote feed to
the station?

That really was what I was basing things on. A phantom music circuit never
performed as well as a discrete pair - even when that pair was an ordinary
telephone circuit.

Did Western Electric invent it?

Who do you think invented it?

I dunno. That's why I was asking you if you were sure or just guessing.
They may well have been the first to use them in the US, of course. But
that's not the same thing.


I saw several sets while in the US military. All were made by WE,
and had the parent numbers on them. WE wouldn't include the numbers if
they didn't own the patent.
--
*Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.


--
And another motherboard bites the dust!