From FB group Bell Telephone
Yeah, that’s the problem. Them fans whining all the time, and having to rinse out the filters in the bathroom every 6 months to keep the PBXs from overheating. I had to get the a/c guys to come to the phone room often and blow out the mold clogging the condensate drain pipe. There was a float switch that shut off the a/c, and the water would back up and shut down the a/c. In an hour or so we’d get complaints from users of dead phones, and I’d go to the MPOE and find it 100 plus degrees inside. Sometimes I could get a fan to blow some outside air into the room and get things running again. It’s always the weakest point that causes big problems. “For want of a nail, the race was lost.”
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I started seeing correlation between the fields of the various colors of the mushroom holders and the way things were done with digital configuration. I never had to learn what all those meant because the key equipment was abandoned when I took over. But like when we moved into the old Wells Fargo Bank bldg on the corner of Main St (Broadway) and Santa Clara in Santa Ana, each floor had a closet with 20 linear feet of backboard covered with green, blue, pink fields of 66 blocks. Most of the copper cables had been scrapped, so I did a lot of demolition just so the crossconnects could be removed. Made it a lot easier to track down problems.
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The only thing I noticed was the 66 blocks were different. Some were 6 across, and were great for punching down phone lines going to multiple bldgs. But there were mostly ‘split’ 66 blocks, 25 pair on each side. One time I punched down a 25 pair, and then found out the block was all four pins connected across. Aww, spit! I had to repunch it down to another split block. 😥
Pac Bell did the installation of the key system in a bldg complex in Centennial Park. I took over the support in 1990. I found that a whole bunch of 100 pair underground cable was not being used, and the unused part was always on the right side of the blocks. But I could get dial tone on them. Short story is the 66 blocks they installed on the far end were not split, so the lines were going from the MPOE to the far end on pairs 1 thru 25, and going thru the unsplit blocks and back to the MPOE on pairs 51 thru 75! So half the 100 pair couldn’t be used because someone screwed up and used the unsplit blocks!
