Dog fixes phone...

[bob urz]

PHONE REPAIR
Longmont,
CO December 12, 2008


A Colorado farm wife called the local phone company to report her telephone
failed to ring when her friends called - and that on the few occasions,
when it did ring, her dog always moaned right before the phone rang.

The telephone repairman proceeded to the scene, curious to see this
psychic dog or senile lady. He climbed a telephone pole, hooked in his
test set, and dialed the subscriber's house.

The phone didn't ring right away, but then the dog moaned and the
telephone began to ring.

Climbing down from the pole, the telephone repairman found:

1. The dog was tied to the telephone system's ground wire with a steel
chain and collar.

2. The wire connection to the ground rod was loose.

3. The dog was receiving 90 volts of signaling current when the number
was called.

4. After a couple of jolts, the dog would start moaning and then urinate.

5. The wet ground would complete the circuit, thus causing the phone to
ring.

Which demonstrates that some problems CAN be fixed by pissing and moaning.
Thought you'd like to know.

 

[William R. Walsh]

Hi!

While it's an amusing story, I'm pretty sure you'll find that its
authenticity is dubious and that substantially the same story has been
passed around in several different settings.

The one I'm familiar with is set in the UK, but all other major
details remain similar.

Can't find it on snopes but I'm pretty sure it's there *somewhere*.

William

 

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article
<6896bfcd-3d1d-45ef-8c50-73ffa1c514d7@q16g2000yqq.googlegroups.com>,
William R. Walsh <wm_walsh@hotmail.com> wrote:

While it's an amusing story, I'm pretty sure you'll find that its
authenticity is dubious and that substantially the same story has been
passed around in several different settings.

The one I'm familiar with is set in the UK, but all other major
details remain similar.

No ground connection on UK phones.

--
*Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat*

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

It sounds like a backwards construction from "pissing and moaning".

I've been reading a book on the history of telecommunication. Using the
earth as a return path was abandoned in the late 19th century, because it
allowed all sorts of electrical garbage to get into the telephone signal.

 

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <hp7tsl$7pc$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
William Sommerwerck <grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote:

It sounds like a backwards construction from "pissing and moaning".

I've been reading a book on the history of telecommunication. Using the
earth as a return path was abandoned in the late 19th century, because it
allowed all sorts of electrical garbage to get into the telephone signal.

I did wonder. Ground returns were sometimes used much later to provide a
phantom circuit(s) over two ordinary pairs. But poor quality.

--
*A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France resulted in Linoleum

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

 

[N_Cook]

Dave Plowman (News) <dave@davenoise.co.uk> wrote in message
news:510243ec35dave@davenoise.co.uk...

In article
6896bfcd-3d1d-45ef-8c50-73ffa1c514d7@q16g2000yqq.googlegroups.com>,
William R. Walsh <wm_walsh@hotmail.com> wrote:
While it's an amusing story, I'm pretty sure you'll find that its
authenticity is dubious and that substantially the same story has been
passed around in several different settings.

The one I'm familiar with is set in the UK, but all other major
details remain similar.

No ground connection on UK phones.

--
*Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat*

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Bit like the UK student wheeze of getting (or not) their professor of
electronics testing the earthing of the phone system by phoning him and
getting him to fill a bucket with water and then putting a foot in it.

 

[bob urz]

N_Cook wrote:

Dave Plowman (News) <dave@davenoise.co.uk> wrote in message
news:510243ec35dave@davenoise.co.uk...
In article
6896bfcd-3d1d-45ef-8c50-73ffa1c514d7@q16g2000yqq.googlegroups.com>,
William R. Walsh <wm_walsh@hotmail.com> wrote:
While it's an amusing story, I'm pretty sure you'll find that its
authenticity is dubious and that substantially the same story has been
passed around in several different settings.
The one I'm familiar with is set in the UK, but all other major
details remain similar.
No ground connection on UK phones.

--
*Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat*

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.


Bit like the UK student wheeze of getting (or not) their professor of
electronics testing the earthing of the phone system by phoning him and
getting him to fill a bucket with water and then putting a foot in it.

It was funny no matter how true it was...

I read another one in an electrical contractor magazine.

An individual reported getting shocked when he went in his aluminum back
door. People thought he was nuts. Turned out, when a contractor was
putting in some siding that had insulation with a aluminum backing on
it, a nail penetrated both the siding a a live wire that was too close
to it. This made a path somehow to energize the door.

bob

 

[Bill Janssen]

William Sommerwerck wrote:

It sounds like a backwards construction from "pissing and moaning".

I've been reading a book on the history of telecommunication. Using the
earth as a return path was abandoned in the late 19th century, because it
allowed all sorts of electrical garbage to get into the telephone signal.



The last knew in 1977, Nevada had one line of ground return. As far as I

can remember
it was about 10 miles long.

Bill K7NOM

 

[Bill Janssen]

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article <hp7tsl$7pc$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
William Sommerwerck <grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote:

It sounds like a backwards construction from "pissing and moaning".



I've been reading a book on the history of telecommunication. Using the
earth as a return path was abandoned in the late 19th century, because it
allowed all sorts of electrical garbage to get into the telephone signal.


I did wonder. Ground returns were sometimes used much later to provide a
phantom circuit(s) over two ordinary pairs. But poor quality.


Phantom circuits using two pair of wires did not use ground return. And

the quality
of speech was as good as the "side" circuits with maybe reduced loss.
The "side" circuits
have to be identical though. If they are not, then from the unbalance,
you can get noise and power line hum.

Bill K7NOM

 

[Jim Yanik]

"William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote in
news:hp7tsl$7pc$1@news.eternal-september.org:

It sounds like a backwards construction from "pissing and moaning".

I've been reading a book on the history of telecommunication. Using the
earth as a return path was abandoned in the late 19th century, because it
allowed all sorts of electrical garbage to get into the telephone signal.

HAH,it STILL gets in there..

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

 

[John Tserkezis]

bob urz wrote:

An individual reported getting shocked when he went in his aluminum back
door. People thought he was nuts. Turned out, when a contractor was
putting in some siding that had insulation with a aluminum backing on
it, a nail penetrated both the siding a a live wire that was too close
to it. This made a path somehow to energize the door.

This is exactly what happened with the Australian home insulation fiasco.

Background is: Government thinks it would be a good idea to subsidise
the installation of home roofing. Allows all and sundry to do the job.
All and sundry suddenly can't cater for the demand, and start hiring
local Joe Idiot as a contractor/worker.

So far this is OK, but installers stopped using normal pink batts, and
started using thinner insulation with aluminium backing (lots cheaper,
so through the subsidy, they make lots more money), laying that over the
roofing structure, and nailing it in place.

Local Joe Idiot who doesn't understand anything about that black magic
called electricity, promptly hammers the nails through live wires, and
kills himself.

That happened four times so far if I recall the reports, along with the
usual spouts of house fires if the installers weren't killed right away.

Even the pink batts were not immune from screwups. Apparently, local
Joe Idiot was placing the fibres directly over downlights. No
ventilation means heat, means fire, means house burning down.


They're still arguing on who to blame. The Government who fostered the
greedy environment, the registered installers who were legally allowed
to hire morons AND for apparently not training them, but have stopped
short of blaming the four who have died, because they didn't know that
putting a nail through a live electrical cable will probably kill you.
Or it's not politically correct or some such rubbish.

All of the above would be my vote.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

I've been reading a book on the history of telecommunication.
Using the earth as a return path was abandoned in the late
19th century, because it allowed all sorts of electrical garbage
to get into the telephone signal.

HAH, it STILL gets in there.

Yes, but this was "mass quantities" that sometimes obliterated the speech.

 

[David Nebenzahl]

On 4/3/2010 7:06 AM William R. Walsh spake thus:

While it's an amusing story, I'm pretty sure you'll find that its
authenticity is dubious and that substantially the same story has been
passed around in several different settings.

The one I'm familiar with is set in the UK, but all other major
details remain similar.

Can't find it on snopes but I'm pretty sure it's there *somewhere*.

Killjoy!


--
You were wrong, and I'm man enough to admit it.

- a Usenet "apology"

 

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <rbQtn.57169$y13.8084@newsfe12.iad>,
Bill Janssen <billj@ieee.org> wrote:

I did wonder. Ground returns were sometimes used much later to provide a
phantom circuit(s) over two ordinary pairs. But poor quality.


Phantom circuits using two pair of wires did not use ground return. And
the quality
of speech was as good as the "side" circuits with maybe reduced loss.
The "side" circuits
have to be identical though. If they are not, then from the unbalance,
you can get noise and power line hum.

A standard phantom circuit does not indeed use a ground return. But some
versions do. Early railway signalling circuits, for example. Or a second
phantom circuit from two pairs.

--
*Cleaned by Stevie Wonder, checked by David Blunkett*

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

 

[Mark Zenier]

In article <hp7tsl$7pc$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
William Sommerwerck <grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote:

It sounds like a backwards construction from "pissing and moaning".

I've been reading a book on the history of telecommunication. Using the
earth as a return path was abandoned in the late 19th century, because it
allowed all sorts of electrical garbage to get into the telephone signal.

For some systems, (Bell, I think), party line phones used various
connections so that only the called party heard the ring. It allowed
three households per line. tip-ring, tip-ground, ring-ground.

That's how my parent's house (installed in late '40s) is wired inside.
Tip and ring on a twisted pair and ground, at each 4 pin outlet.
Originally a party line, but they converted everybody to private lines
in the late 1950's.

Mark Zenier mzenier@eskimo.com
Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)