Visiting the Telekom Historik in Bochum
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- Опубліковано 10 вер 2024
- Hey, so we're on holiday for a while, but that didn't stop us from seeing some telephone switching! Here's a bit about the telephone switching museum in Bochum, Germany.
Their website: www.telekom-hi...
Another museum with tons of info: www.waehlamt-w...
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It was a pleasure guiding you around, maybe we’ll see each other again in Seattle someday!
It's great how even through a language barrier, the tech translates fine
Schematics and mechanisms transcend language barriers, don't they?
@@KeritechElectronicsJust like music! :)
If there isn't already, there should now be an international federation of telephone museums, so you can have exchanges (of the personnel sort!) where you go and spend a week or two at each other's sites. Ein
Fernsprechermuseumspersonalaustauschdienst!
Not just a Fernsprechermuseumspersonalaustauschdienst, but a Fernmeldemuseumspersonalaustauschdienst! (God, that sounds extra german.) After all, telephony is only part of the world of telecommunications...
OMG!! That Taco Bell Labs shirt is killing me.
She stole my shirt!!! 😭
Lemme guess: they found an efficient way to produce a great quantity of gas?🤔😀🤣
Looking at your fascinating videos, I thought that it would be great to visit your museum in Seatle, but not likely to ever get there. Now you present a similar museum that is within a one hour drive for me. I will visit the place soon! Thanks, Sarah!
I wish this video was 10 days earlier. I drove down from Denmark to Düsseldorf for the Pink concert and would have loved to visit this museum. There is also a mail and phone museum in Copenhagen that I'd love to visit again, as I didn't know nearly as much about phone stuff when I visited almost 20 years ago.
The clip of you two on the train was SUPER adorable
Plus 1! ❤
Budapest ... on the Pest side of the river, there was (in 1994) a telecom museum built around an old Siemens Typ 17A step switch. I spoke not a word of Hungarian, and the guy who was attending that day spoke not a word of English, but I was able to describe to him that I managed a modern digital Siemens (Century) tandem switch. My [then] partner was not as enthused about old telecom as I was and after an hour of me running around like a literal kid-in-a-candy-store begged me to go to the castle.
If you watch the NOVA episode "The KGB, the Computer, and Me" from 1990, which is based on Cliff Stoll's book "The Cuckoo's Egg," it includes footage of Deutsche Bundespost workers checking switches in a central office in Bremen in an attempt to trace a call. Enjoy your trip!
This was also one of my first associations when I saw some of the test equipment on wheels that they also have at the museum.
Hey, that's a surprise... this video has popped up in my timeline - and I did not think twice about the title because I grew up in the area.
Then, it turns out, it's from the telephone people from Seattle, alerting me to a museum I did not even know existed!
I hope you also had a chance to visit the Bergbau Museum in Bochum - the mining museum, which is a really unique place in the world. Apart from being one of the world's foremost institutions in the archeology of mining sites, they have a visitor's coal mine, dug at a depth of 30 m below the museum.
And a bit of a secret tip is the German Exhibition for Workers' Protection - Deutsche Arbeitsschutzausstellung (DASA) in Dortmund, a large museum all about work related accidents in heavy industry and their prevention in almost three centuries of industrialization.
I‘m also from the region and actually lived in Bochum for some years. But I have never heard of the telephone museum.
But I would also like to confirm your recommendation. The DASA in Dortmund is great!
And because I‘m German, I also need to correct one thing: Zeche Zollverein is not „just outside of Essen“, it’s in Essen. Actually not too far away from the city center.
The sticker you are trying to block out! Funny :) Love the old mac sticker too.
Is it blocked because the UA-cam algorithm don't like the f-bomb in videos?
Probably. It is funny.
Strowger style switching equipment was used in some areas quite long. When I was in vocational school in 1997 I had a training stint at the then national telephone company, and I think the medium size offices had 5ESS or some derivative or respective at that time. ISDN had the buzz around it. Rumor has it that SxS equipment were used in some small and rural municipalities in Finland until the early 90's when DTMF became available all over the country.
Yesterday they opened a "new" event bar in my village and there I met a guy I met more like as a side quest in that telephony training as he drove me to the field a couple times. I asked him if he knew anything about my mentor there, and to my surprise he appeared upset and asked me if I was asking seriously... it turns out he is no longer here with us. And then, it turned out that this guy had also worked a lot on what he called "troukeri" when he was in the army in the early 80's, it was very common technology as PBXes. Damn it, I must get back to him some time in a less loud ambience.
Cheers, Sarah and Clair! Have a fantastic remainder of your vacation. Absolutely love these videos of the history of Telecom tech... I live for it. My uncle worked for/at BT back in the 70s through to the 00s, and I remember him taking me to one of the exchanges. The... sound.. the sheer noise... This was somewhere in Liverpool, England and forgive me, but I can't remember exactly where... I was like 8 or 9 at the time, but it was astounding. I had never encountered such wonder. Banks of 'things' going "click" and "buzz" to a kid is magic. Sooooo It eventually led me down the rabbit hole of wanting to learn more and more.
Thanks for keeping the magic alive
Good luck explaining your souvenirs to the costoms officer. That would be a funny video... 🙂
If you like weird spy tech I highly recommend the Stasi Museum in Berlin. It was the highlight of my trip for sure.
Great you like it here in Germany 🙂I work in Wuppertal, so I see the Schwebebahn a lot. Congratulations that you actually caught it running, it has been shut down for maintenance a lot in the past years.
The soft mounted bracket for the relays probably helps dampen noise and impact wear down. If the relays are rigidly mounted, the contacts bear all the force of the solenoid impact and the frame would resonate more.
I dont care if its different. If its this channel, I'm watching it and learning cool shit. Thanks for the good content!
Hey Sarah. You never fail to astonish me with your knowledge! Thanks for all you do.
Loving the update from abroad... Keep having fun, travel safely, and we'll see you back home after DEFCON!
Nice, learned from a Seattle based YT Channel that there is a Telephon Musueum right in my Neighbourhood 😊
I'm guessing the System 50 is Siemens? It has a similar motion and relay types as my USI 30 PBX.
Have a great trip, I hope Claire finds and enjoys what she is looking for.
I'm so glad you were in my area. I would have loved to say hello. I have also already visited Telekom Historik and would have been very happy to serve as some kind of "technical interpreter".
Creat to see you girls on a vacation! Another one to add to my list when in Europe. Keep these great Vids coming....
Joni..fancy seeing you here!
It's Connie B...enjoying another one of Sarah's wonderful videos.
What a great video, again!
In Berlin I can recommend "Museum für Kommunikation" as well as "Deutsches Technikmuseum", with of course the first one being more on-brand. But I am sure you already found that one.
You are probably not going via Paderborn, but there would be the "Heinz Nixdorf Museumsforum" which is a privately owned around the history of computing, starting really early on.
Coming back to phone exchanges -- it's really interesting how different the development in East and West Germany have been. I recently learned that in the GDR they for example experimented with shared phone lines between offices and private homes -- based on time of day, because obviously factories and offices don't need phones after 6pm or so. This required special equipment of course in the exchange to record the call durations etc...
Man! You would make an awesome tour guide!
Also check if you may be able to meet Harald Welte, who does a lot of vintage telco stuff.
Hello Sara, have a nice holiday. The device with the punch cards is a test device for telephone lines (in short: APRE-L), the access data and the expected electrical values were stored on the punch cards and these were punched onto the punch cards by another device. After the test, they fell into one of three categories: test passed, test failed or test not possible, for example if the line was busy.
Didn't know my hometown actually had a cool museum like this. Will give it a visit some time, thank you so much!!!
so I grew up in Romania in the 80s, my mom just so happened to be a telephone operator, I remember seeing some of these systems when I was 6 similar to what she had at her desk
I’ve only recently discovered your channel. Your enthusiasm is so completely and utterly wonderful. Hope you have a amazing holiday, stay awesome!
Added to the bucket list.
Thanks!
Wow, the Switch Witch :-) is visiting Germany. Welcome, have a pleasant stay and a lot of fun!
Aaah, you made it to Germany. I can see you had a good time. Loving it!!!
Essen? You’re just a few hours away from where I was stationed at Kaiserslautern in the 90s. We had an old abandoned rotary switch but don’t remember what kind. I went back in 2008 to see if I could grab some pieces of it, but they tore the building down to make way for a runway expansion. Oh well. Glad you two are there having a fantastic time. Are you visiting any other countries? If you have time, go to Dachau, Heidelburg, Frankenstein Castle, and Neuschwanstein and go to some local wine/beer fests. Thanks for taking the time to post a video while on vacation. It means a lot to your fans.
I've spent 2 weeks this year in Bochum on a training course and had no idea this museum existed!
What a surprise, you were so close to where I live! Shame on me that I failed to visit the museum in Bochum until now. Your great video is reason enough to catch up on that asap!
One of the rows in the switch room contains hardware that I possibly got routed through for phone calls when I was like 12 or so. It was part of the 86 phone number range which is in the north of Bochum where I used to live as a child.
Really glad you enjoy your vacation in germany. If you like the Zeche Zollverein you should come over to Duisburg and visit the Landschaftspark Nord. Its Similar but its a steel producing factory which is a huge tourist atttraction too :)
I've got one of these System 50 selectors on my desk for years, and I can't put into words how much I envy you the System 22 one.. ;-)
Analog electromechanics is so cool, and I'd love to visit your museum some day, if it wasn't literally on the other side of the globe.
The Telekom Historik is definitely a hidden gem, found it by accident some years ago. Hope your video shines some more light on the fantastic work of the volunteers over there, similar to your great work for preservation! A big one in Western Germany would be the Heinz Nixdorf Museumsforum in Paderborn, a huge museum dedicated to computers and the history of information in general. Even if the focus is more on computers, they also have sections of mechanical step switching equipment on display in an operating state. They also offer bilingual digital guides, English tours are only on request (feel free if you need a contact)
Wonderful video, thank you for posting! Nice to see they have a call simulator at their museum, it makes the experience more fun. The simulator was on from time to time during my most recent visit to your Seattle museum, it certainly helps better illustrate how things would have been in normal operation. Cheers!👏
You two are absolutely the best
How awesome that you found a telecom museum on your vacation - thanks for taking us along!
Wow, those are beautiful switches.
The Strowger story is hilarious. Who knew it was all about undertaker competition?
5:53 OMG I love the master clock there.
I so badly wanted to get ahold to seatac's clocks when they renovated the N terminal, but never mustered the courage to ask.
My father used to work as a telephone exchange technician here in Germany, back in the 1970s. As a kid I would visit him at work now and then, and see the the electro-mechanical switching in action, and he would explain to me how everything worked. I still remember the smell, and of course the constant clicking and rattling of the switches. He also still has one or two of the "Heb-Drehwähler" at home on display - though I'm not sure what system.
Thanks for reminding me of that museum. Some mentioned it to me a while ago, but I had completely forgotten about it. I'm actually employed by a company in Bochum, but I'm hardly ever in the city. Next time I'm down there I'll try and visit the museum. (I don't think I'll get to Seattle in the foreseeable future)
If you like these kind of volunteer-operated museums: if you ever make it to Göteborg in Sweden, there is a fantastic Radio Museum you should visit.
I have lived in bochum for years and still hang around there often and yet this is the first i am hearing of this place 🤦♂️
Back in the '70s I was stationed at the US European Command headquarters in Germany, working in the technical control center (essentially the central distribution point for all the communication circuits). The other half of our building housed a No 5 crossbar CO, complete with switchboard, dedicated to the actual command center. The adjacent attached building housed, among other things, a Siemens step-by-step CO that served the rest of the post. I never got the chance to really see the Siemens equipment other than the mechanical ringing machine.
I can recommend the Depot of the Museum für Kommunikation Frankfurth in Heusenstamm. They are open one day per month and they have _all_ mechanical phone systems set up in working order. They are currently working on getting an EWSD to run. Plus things like TV equipment... like the first HDTV cameras and recorders made in Europe and so on.
Wish I had known you guys were in Wuppertal. Aside from the Schwebebahn, I would have recommended you guys also visit the museum of early industrialization. While mostly about the local traditional vocations (bleaching and weaving cloth), it shows some of the first uses of punch-cards and mechanical „computing“ for weaving patterns into cloth.
I worked on some old European and American phone systems. A big difference was the ringing, 25 Hz vs 30 Hz, and the rotary dialing. The European systems all required an extra pulse from the rotary dial. Luckly. Most phones came with a spring setting on the ringers for the correct hertz setting, and on the dial to add or remove that extra pulse. Understanding the ringer was easy because it was just half the hertz of the respecting commercial power, but I never knew what the extra pulse was for. I just knew to work the settings had to match, lol. Well, guessing it has something to do with that System 50 stepper switch you got and how it was reset to return home.
I am so close! Greetings from the eastern part of The Netherlands.
that shirt is so good
There is also the Kommunikationsmuseum Frankfurt has a small section with telecommunication, normally this museum is about postal stuff. Because the Deutsche Bundespost used to handle mailing AND telecommunication in Germany. You might have seen the famous Posthorn logo at some places. Some have some "communication lightnings" beneath, this was the logo from that time. To some point, the BuPo even had satellites in space. The Bundespost is long gone, now it is just the Deutsche Post, which own the DHL. The other half for communications is called Telekom which is also known as T-Mobile in the US. There is that story, where German tourists went to the USPS office in the states to "phone home" because of that and there were met by a confused post master officer because the USPS does not handle long distance calls but they took the postcards with pleasure. Anyways: Nice to have you in Germany.
i'll make sure to check this out next time im in the area!
If you happen to be in the UK go and visit the Amberley museum - it has a couple of working exchanges.
I've long wanted to make my way to the Connections Museum, I thought I could later this month but - darn, just barely not enough time.
Awesome tour ! If you get to Munich do NOT miss their science Museum ! Munich Deutsches Museum
Very neat! The look and red accents of the museum reminded me of the CO at the base of the Telekom Austria tower in Vienna. I installed an early Motorola Netz-C cellular switch there in 1984.
I'm told that if you call it the "Danglebahn", it upsets the locals. I may have to visit it in order to find out whether that's true...
A nice video about the old telecommunications technology here in Germany. I worked on System 50 and 55 for 10 years. If you have any questions, maybe I can answer them. Unfortunately, I only know System 62 for “long distance” from training courses, but maybe I can answer questions about that too.
I was at this place a couple months ago, though i had to cut it short due to time constraints. I really appreciate you pointing out some of the details, many I've missed when i was there.
aww, nice! a part of the CM-staff in my hometown, essen :D but yeah, we have some great historical relevant stuff here, in all directions of interest. another gem is the nixdof-museum in paderborn - TOTALLY worth the drive!
Girl the shirt I love it
Welcome to Germany, to Europe! Have a good time ❤
If you're still in europe you might want to take a look at Museums in Switzerland. Like the "Verkehrshaus" in Luzern, the "Museum für Kommunikation" in Bern or the cool "Enter, Technikmuseum" near Solothurn...
Yes Zeche Zollverein! I was there once as a child, and it was amazing.
.oO( What's that blocked out sticker? Could it be Æ's f.c. ooh... yes of course it is
Awesome trip, museum, and video! Have a great time!
telephone exchanges have always fascinated me, never got to have one though
Omg your tee shirt 😂😂😂
Could you find any telecom museums with R7 type rotary systems? (Similar to WE Panel exchanges).
I hope you can travel with that old machine part, it could resemble a gun part for people not into technical stuff. 😮
It's disgusting for me as an former employee to get introduced to the museum by you 😉
Nice tour - thank you.
I wonder how they managed to get all that stuff. When I startet ad DT in 93 it was the overall goal to fully digitalize the net.
If you want to see more of System 62, here is a video from 1994, recorded a few days before they switched off the analog long distance exchange in Bochum and changed to ISDN. Unfortunately, the video is in German. This is System 62 not in a museum, but in “real life”. I assume the exchange was located in the same building where the museum is today.
ua-cam.com/video/1Hig_QO4k2c/v-deo.html
Great video. Enjoy your holiday. Thank you.
9:14 reminds me of a motor-uniselector (Australia)
QWERTZ! Very cool. Thanks for the update! Have a great rest of your vacation.
Oh man! I was in Bochum in December. Wish I'd known about this
Ohhhhh are you gonna come visit the Museum für Kommunikation in Nürnberg too? I highly recommend it. It's also the principal museum of the German state railway company.
"Just riding the skytrain around..." *vancouver pride intensifies*
Also holy shit I want one of those Taco Bell Labs shirts
Taco Bell Labs is an excellent shirt. Nice.
Greetings from Bochum. Hope u had a nice time in Our Metropole area.
Pity I did not know you were coming to Bochum. I would have been very happy to help translate/interpret for you guys. For berlin just to be sure: Technikmuseum & Museum fuer Kommuikation. Have a great vacation!
what a great video, Vielen Dank...! Us Tip and Ring guys know where you are coming from...!
Great shirt!!
It's interesting that modern web and mail servers have analog features as this mechanical switches. They have server logs instead of trouble cards!
'Things that we normally do" is maybe stretching the definition of normal a bit 😅. Love your channel, even so most of what you do is well beyond my understanding. Keep up the good work!
Well for a nerd to see - do you have time to visit Munich? The "Deutsche Museum" and it's branch office (Flugwerft Schleißheim)is amazing. You will need several days for that.
So happy you got to ride the Schwebebahn, I would love to some day.
Thanks for sharing, safe travels!
Let me know if you also come to southern Germany and need some hints to telecoms related sights.
Interestingly, I took apart an old typewriter when I was a kid, same function like a return after the line complete 💯✅ nice noises ❤
Oh, did you visit the Nixdorf Museum in Paderborn, too?
Love the Taco Bell Labs T
Enjoy Germany
You like clocks too? You should be awarded the title of Mech Witch. I like clocks too but only have 2 worth talking about, a Hubert Herr Cuckoo clock and a Howard Miller Grandfather clock and they are both awesome. But I have a watch collection that is worthy of bragging about. If you are still there, go to Bavaria and get a handmade Cuckoo from the Black Forest and hand carry it back.
I imagine them presenting their "artifacts" at the airport security 😅 And then in US immigration/customs again... Hope you came back without problems!
About the east German system - I'm not sure, the east system was very small - a customer first had to be checked if he is worth of a phone, then he might wait on the phone for ages.
No specialty of the East. Around 1968, my parents in the Western part of the country had to wait about six years for a telephone.
Thanks for the video It all way interesting to see how other country did it.
Don't forget minituar wonderland :)
11:10 this lamp was personal 😂
Safe travels!!