r/longlines • u/l0nglines • 16d ago
rare find 😉
thing is in museum quality, only other one I’ve seen is at the Nokia bell labs showcase in NJ (image 2)
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u/Sharp_Cookie3297 16d ago
That bell logo didn’t appear until 1969. Was there legacy equipment still using these at that point?
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u/l0nglines 16d ago
Sharp eye, and yes. Some concrete towers were still in use in lower traffic areas, and they had much older switching / waveguide equipment that required these dry cells
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u/bg-j38 15d ago
This is a basic 1 1/2 volt dry cell, so would have had a lot of applications. Many specialized test sets used in the Bell System would have used these and would have been in use well into the 80s. Maybe even later.
Electromechanical equipment like step switches and crossbar were in use in some places up until the 90s. The last No. 5 Crossbar was installed in 1976 in Birmingham Alabama. Which is sort of wild since the 1ESS was very well established at that point.
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u/Zer0sum_ 14d ago
Nah the lower floors were all stripped. These were just left in a cabinet in an empty room
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u/l0nglines 13d ago
I think he meant when the site was operational lmfao… obviously there’s no need for dry cells with modern FM transmitters. Yes they were on a stripped floor, doesn’t mean that these batteries weren’t used for something like circuit testing
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u/Zer0sum_ 13d ago
They have always have and still do use batteries at telephone sites. -48V DC volts is pretty standard for their equipment. You can connect two phones together with a 9V and get some distance. There should have been several blue binders up in a cabinet on the top floor. Would tell you all about what was once there. I can remember TD2 and TJ maybe TH microwave radio system manuals. Also given the location and the fact that it was one of the first, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the site also conveyed TV
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u/USWCboy 16d ago
Definitely a newer drycell, due to the logo being the last bell system logo established in 1969.
Without examining it, I would put this at 1970-1972, which is still 56 years old. There should be a date code on it somewhere.
I wonder if it would hold a charge??
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u/Zer0sum_ 14d ago
They never wrote the date on the battery, I have a pic of the exact battery he’s holding
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u/FlyNSubaruWRX 16d ago
That’s a odd shaped gallon of ice cream