atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems 1A2 and Comkey Telephones & Systems Project 1A2: Phase I complete.

I was trained the same way...take small pieces of scrap to tie the jumpers together, and leave drip loops so you can pull the jumpers if needed.
Sam, I thought the 3rd pair was A/A1?

Cool.

You guys just saved at least 1 do over x 7 stations. I'd of pulled it all tight and used cable ties (I'd thought of using scrap (no problem getiing that!!!) to secure 'em, but wasn't sure what the right way was. I guess now that I think about it, putting cable ties on almost defeats the whole purpose.

Thanks!
Matt

Jeff -

No A/A1 on a dial Icm, only on line cards and the like (no hold on the ICM). The original Manual ICM (401A) needed an A lead, the later one (401B) didn't.

I'm trying to remember if the automatic tie line cards (415) needed an A lead. I could go downstairs dig through some boxes, find the BSPs or the GTEPs and find out, but I think I'll have a beer instead.

Sam

I must have been thinking 1A2 without an intercom.

Jeff, you weren't entirely incorrect. Generally, a "line" appearance, whether a CO or intercom, always had tip/ring (wh/bl) and lamp ground/lamp wh/gn) connection. In an effort to keep everything uniform, and since A leads weren't needed for an intercom circuit, the wh/or pair in the jumper was supposed to be unused.

The "purist" way as Sam mentioned was to not use the white/orange pair at all, although some carpetbaggers were known to use it for the buzzer pair.

I did this once or twice or.... :rolleyes:

The purist way is to not use the white/orange pair in the cross connect wire at all for an intercom appearance. I preferred to strip it completely out of the cross connect wire, but that's just me. A separate yellow/blue single-pair jumper was then used for the buzzer pair.

Sam:

You mean that all of your spools of jumper wire were actually still there when you returned? That ain't happening these days, that's for sure.

Oh, and the 415's were wired just like a CO line, A leads, ringing and all.

Ed -

Maybe it was the 414s (manual ringdown) that didn't have an A-lead? I know they had a separate signal lead. One of them didn't.....I think.

Damn. Now I'm going to have to go downstairs and check.

Sam

Hey Ed... When I did Transmission we had special 2.5 pr X-connect for T-1s . W/O for Xmit, W/Bl for Receive and solid Gn for trace. Never saw that before. I was sure that guys had been stripping out the W/Gn. Who knew?

Ed -

414's: Signal key, no A -lead. Ditto the Short haul Tie Lines (418)

I've forgotten most things, but not everything.

Just everything important.

Sam

I was thinking standard 1A2 with just incoming lines. Was I correct on my 3 pairs per line?

Geez, you couldn't have taken my word for it Sam? :rofl:

I've said this before and I'll say it again: I'd be happy if I could remember half of the things that the real telco guys forgot. Don't sell yourself short.

Ahh, yes, that 2.5 pair cross connect wire. I used to have a bunch of it around here (yeah, I know what everyone's probably thinking), but I sold it off. I seem to recall that it did have a solid green wire instead of green/white, but I never gave it much thought.

Here's a cheesy attempt at a close-up of a "donut" on cross connect wires that I like to use. I just take a 1-2" scrap and form it into a circle or two around the bundle. Both ends are left loose so that they open up or fall off if necessary. If you can't see it, it's a blue wire about halfway down the block. I don't know why I used the blue wire; the red would have been more appropriate:

Almost, Jeff:

3 pairs for the first line and 2.5 for each additional. The A1 lead only needed to be there once for the first line on 1A2 sets. The unused half-pairs provided A leads for lines 6 through 9 in ten/twenty button sets or plenty of spare leads.

ITT/Comdial sets even allowed cutting it down to two pairs if you were desperate by commoning all lamp grounds together within the set. You could even get more tacky by commoning the single A1 to the lamp ground. One could have even gotten more common than that if necessary, as only one ground connection was actually required within the set.

That saved a bunch of "LG" leads for more trickery, like button/buzzer pairs, ring transfer keys, etc. I won't tell you some of the cheap moves that I made to gain another half-pair, at least not in public.