What is this?

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

It was removed from the basement of a house and has a solid porcelain base.



Marking are "Western Electric Co." and "Patented Dec. 19, 1905".  The three leads at the top have embossings in the porcelain.  The outside leads are marked "I " and the inside lead is marked "G".

Paul Rohrs_14

Interesting

Wow, I love seeing old equipment like that.



I am guessing here...but because of the center steel post in the second pic, it looks to me like an inductive coupling more commonly known as a transformer.   Just a guess.



Best,



Paul

Jean-David Beyer

Lightning protector.

It is a lightning protector for (old) telephones. It will not protect electronic telephones. It contains two fuses (the long bars on each side), and a spark gap to ground. It might have a little other stuff, depending on date of manufacture.

Henry

Phone

Yes it is and a little tale.

We once made a new bathroom in an extension. We got supeana for a court apearance. It seems that the lady when in the bath would get shocked when the phone rang. Don't forget that when the old phone rang, it used 70V!. They had the electrician check everything. Smart guy that he was, he saw the ground wire from that Bell junction/lightning box. He followed it. It was connected not to a cold water pipe but the bath overflow. The lady sued Bell. The Bell tech that did the job and his super were in court. The judge asked a few questions to the Bell guys. They said everything was up to code. He asked us a few questions. It was one of the early ABS piping jobs, so I explained that there was no conductivity by the plastic pipe and that normaly all grounds are on the cold water line. The judge asked the electrician for his views. The electrician shows him the sections of the electrical code. The judge rules for the lady that was geting shocked. Mind you this is Canada. The lady won $200 and we each got a bus ticket!

bob_46

Memories

When I was a kid I used to take the headphones from my crystal set and hook them

onto those two long fuses and listen in to my sisters phone conversations .

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

Fascinating!

Thanks, Jean-David.



Bob: Did your sister ever find out?

SWEI

ka-ching

Great story.  Ring voltage is a 20 Hz AC signal that starts out (at the central office) at 90V.  Pretty annoying even though the current is quite low...

Jean-David Beyer

Don't forget that when the old phone rang, it used 70V!

Actually, the ringing voltage was supposed to be 90 volts, 20 cycles. The bell mechanism was tuned to 20 cycles. That way, if 25 cycle power (used long ago) or 60 cycle power got induced into the telephone line, it would not ring the bell.



Torturers used to get old ringing generators and hook them up to their victims and turn the crank. It got results, if your intention was to hurt people. I could not vouch for the accuracy of any information obtained though. My view is that torture works, not to obtain information, but to terrorize the population where it is practiced, for fear that they could be next. And of course, they could be next.

Steamhead

In the Bell System

that was called a "station protector". This version probably dates at least to the 1930s.