[BC] putting phone calls on the air

[DHultsman5@aol.com]

In a message dated 9/16/2006 10:53:29 PM Central Daylight Time,  
lane at radiolanes.com writes:

I have a  Western
> Electric catalog from 1950 where the "recorder interface" was  available,
and
> I know many stations used that exact interface for  many years to get phone
> audio on the air.

I recall calling them  "Beeper Boxes"  We built a hybrid out of a 111C repeat
coil and a cap,  fed mic and program less phone feed (before they called it
mix-minus), back  down the pots line. Ma Bell was not happy when they first
saw  it.




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In the mid '60's When I was CE for McLendon's KLIF in Dallas, we had the  
Chuck Boyles show on from 10 till 1 AM each night.  We used telcos standard  50-B 
 tube type Recorder Connector with a six button telco set.  We  did a telco 
No-No in those days and modified the 6 button 5 line set in three  ways;
 
                     1.) We moved T&R on the 50B to the output of the  
pushbuttons and hooked the telephone set 425 network T&R to  T1&R1 on the Western 
Electric 50B.  Allowing us to use one  Recorder Connector instead of the tariff 
required one for each line.
 
                    2.)  We installed a 1000 ohm pot across the carbon 
microphone on the 425A  network to reduce the announcers audio.  The phone was 
equipped with a  telco supplied headset.
 
                    3.)  We removed the interlock puncheons on the mechanical 
pushbuttons to allow  pushing two buttons down at one time for conferencing, 
by paralleling two  telephone lines T & R.
 
After a similiar show was done on a sister station we received a visit from  
a lawyer, makerting assistant and technician from SW Bell.  They wanted to  
see their equipment used on the talk show. They immediately removed all  
connections to the phone internally,
  re-installed the Recorder-Connector on the first line only and  removed the 
puncheons on the six button switches to allow only one button to be  pushed 
at one time.  Also specific instruction were given about  modifications to 
their system that they claimed may damage their network.
 
We had a few days under alot of pressure to restore the conferencing  
feature. The only way the phone company could offer conferencing was thru a  bridge 
that we could install on our switchboard.  This would require an  operator on 
duty from 10-1AM.
 
I ordered up four recorder-couplers, new solid state devices made  for Ford 
Industries Code-A-Phone interfaces that had, line sieze, audio in  and audio 
output.
 
The were installed on the four talk show lines by the phone company. A "D"  
connector was on the bottom of each box in the telco room.
 
We built our own controller for signalling and dropping lines. We took  the 
audio output from each line thru a mixer panel and fed its output to  the 
console. We split the CR microphone into another small mixer to feed the  boxes. 
The announcer now used his microphone to talk on the telphone and  mix lines for 
conferencing.  There was enough isolation in the Hybrids  on the boxes to 
allow avoid any ringing when conferencing.
 
This was all done in about four days. As soon as we started conferencing  the 
phone company folks all came back in with lawyers but this time we had our  
lawyer there at the same time.  They looked over the two phone on the key  
system and didn't find any modifications.  They then asked how we were  doing the 
broadcast conferencing.  Then our attorney explained that since  they didn't 
have a specific tariff to do what we needed, we have done this using  their 
tariff specified and paid for installed interfaces.  We then showed  them the 
four boxes that their installer had installed and the demarc point of  the "D" 
connectors.
 
They asked to see our equipment, our attorney quickly noted that it  was our 
properity and was properly interfaced with a tariffed  interface paid for 
monthly. We would not show them the equipment and  expected no more discussion 
unless they could prove damage to their  network.
 
The solution of the interfaces came from Bob Beemish our Chief Engineer at  
KABL-AM-FM in San Francisco. The other hardware evolved from a couple  of four 
pot Collins remote mixers and a lot of hard work.  Our second  generation was 
smaller and had smaller mixers and a neater control  box.   A couple of years 
later when things cooled down we  installed a speaker phone from the telephone 
company and used the interface  boxes to simply parallel T & R for 
conferencing.
 
Today's Telos systems with Digital hybrids are really so much better for  
telephone talk shows.  I find the telephone talk shows with the newer  digital 
cellular phones sounding so bad that I believe that the old  "cell  phones to 
the front of the line"  policy had probably been  dropped.  
 
Dave Hultsman