TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Gets some pretty funny looks from store managers though when you go in to ask about it 
Is that for a rotary or bar exchange Paul?
OK I think I finally have this "effects" thing figured out. If a girl sits on my SVT while I'm playing "Rockin in the Free World" , it has the "effect" of causing an orgasm. Or if a guy stands right in front of my amp while I'm playing "Low Rider" , The double E in the riff is the brown note and has the "effect" of making him poop his pants. Right?
In my day back in the UK it was called a Strowger exchange. Cross Bar was a different animal that I didn't enjoy working on as much.
There was a unit on site that checked for line quality. It would hunt though the lines and camp on an active call until the call ended. It would then repeat the excersise. The call was routed to a speaker which would broadcast the call into the building. Some of the calls were more than a little risqué to say the least. We'd all gather and have a chuckle.
Shows you how old I am! I suppose this type of call was my generations equivalent of Sexting!
Not related but a fun story. My brother and I sound almost identical on the phone and his second wife was originally my girlfriend. I called him and his wife answered (found out later he got called in to work) and she said how much fun "last night was". Too much to resist, "What did you enjoy most?" Almost 15 minutes later with graphic descriptions of the evenings activities and what was done affected her how.....I made her aware that she was talking to her brother in law (former boyfriend). Maybe 25 seconds of dead silence followed by a "click".
Wow! Does that bring back memories! Where I grew up in Marshfield, Missouri, a family named Garst owned the local telephone company before it integrated into the Ma Bell network in the '70's. I remember as a boy touring the building with my Dad and seeing and having the relay stacks explained to me, although I didn't at the time know what it meant.You've got to seize the line circuit which routes you to a Group selector. That operates the A relay that operates the B and C relays. This allows dial tone from a motorized generator to be induced into the line via the A relay coils. Dialling, or tapping the cradle, flaps the A armature, which has notches to lighten it's mass, which drives the Group selector vertical the same as dialled. It then hunts horizontally to find another available group and the sequence repeats for the second number dialled. And so on. Gawd I loved those days! Walking into a silent building full of racks of equipment and leaving behind a fully functional, and very noisy, telephone exchange.
<sigh> The good old days! Now that it's pretty much all electronic, pulse dialling is no more.
Edit for correctness: That B relay was slow to release and stayed operated while the A did flap!
Yes, Mom's family was like that in Seymour, Missouri, south of Marshfield. And you listened for your pattern of rings on the party line to know if the call was for you or one of the neighbors. As I remember, My grandparent's ring was short-long, and I think their number, until the standardization of seven digit numbers, was 18FF11 or something like that. Mom told me that when she would call Dad when he was in grad school out of state, she had all the exchange information written down so that she could tell each operator in turn how to contact the next exchange down the line, and it took about a half to three-quarters of an hour just to connect the call.
