Rockland Switchboard & Telephone History Center
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- Опубліковано 20 січ 2019
- This is a video tape of Chris Ricciotti, owner and curator of the Rockland Telephone History Center, being challenged by his friends and supporters during the museum open house on the weekend of Saturday & Sunday, April 14th and 15th, 2018.
Chris challenged them to load him up with as much traffic as possible from all the display phones we have on the wall displays at the museum. They went around and generated call traffic while he operated the switchboard, connecting calls.
Chris is sitting at a Rockland, MA Switchboard, a Western Electric 555 Cord Switchboard. Next to him is Bryan Williams at the Whitman, MA Switchboard, also a Western Electric 555 Cord switchboard. The last board in this row is the Brockton, MA Switchboard, a Western Electric 551-B Switchboard.
Come and visit our museum. We are always look for people who would to learn about being telephone operators or who like telephone history and would enjoy greeting visitors and giving them a tour of our exhibit.
For more information, contact Chris Ricciotti by phone or text at (339) 204-7644, by email at Ricciotti@aol.com, on FaceBook at "Rockland Switchboard & Telephone History Discovery Center", or at our website at www.rocklandtelephonemuseum.com.
Thanks for your interest! We would love to hear from you!!
I was an overseas telephone operator in the 1980s and a TSPS operator in the 1990s. I was a young man when I did this job, so it was hard for me to just sit there for 8 hours a day (or two 4 hour shifts) while life was going on all around outside. But now, I miss that job so much and even dream sometimes about doing it. TSPS was a mechanised switchboard, but the ISPS (international) was semi mechanised, so we still used cords and jacks. Our boards looked like the toll operator boards.
Hi Robert, I also was a TSPS operator, but I had already worked three different 4 different switchboards before becoming an "Bell" operator. I was disappointed my first day on the job because I had a visit to that office while I was in school and our tour included a trip to the operating room. I was looking forward to working that big 3cl board and when they took me to the TSPS training room I was really a bit upset. But, it was terrible during training but got better after I was on the live board. It did get boring some days but with overseas being added it was a bit more exciting. I have always loved telephones and when working at a hospital I talked the operator at night to show me how. Almost got fired when I was caught at 16 years old by the administrator. But I went to the High School Office and started working the 555 cord pbx and later back to the hospital 608a. While in the Army in Germany I got to work the 10 position manual/autovon switchboard in Stuttgart. I am retired now days and miss that job and wish I could go back and do it again. But, I wish I could do the 608a at a hospital. No tickets and everyone knew where to find you and you made friends.
@@mooredogfather You've had quite the history! I remember those autovon numbers because they couldn't be dialed over the civilian network. There were a lot of problems with people's families back here in the USA (for some reason I seem to remember North Carolina folks having the most problems). Apparently, they would get an autovon number from their soldier loved ones and then when they tried to reach them, they wouldn't work. Maybe you can give me a bit of info on that?
@@555pghbob I didn't get to place a lot of autovon calls. I was loaned to the switchboard for a couple months, but most of my calls were done building circuits. I had to call three different cities to reach the ski area that was popular with the officers. I do wish I had kept the 551 like yours, I had it working in my first house after the army. Ran a line to a friend down the fence. It was ripped out one night when we rang it during night time.
@@555pghbob I was suddenly aware that I did answer incoming Autovon calls sometimes. We had a firm rule in Germany on the military board that you don't connect autovon to non-autovon lines that went to other cities. Well, when I was new, I had a call that was trying to reach another city and the caller begged me to connect him to the operator in that city. I didn't see any supervisor around so I connected him. Suddenly a hand reached over my shoulder and pulled the cords out. It was the boss, and she was about 4 foot tall and I thought she was going to really be pissed. But, she just said we don't do that. Later, I was told that she had been in Berlin during the war and when they were bombed she was an operator in the basement of a building that was hit. She stayed on that board and worked what lines were not disconnected, figured it was probably the safest place to be. When I left and was finished working for them, the managers gave me a gift, and a letter of recommendation about my work, how many hours I had worked and that they would like to have me stay and work for them should I stay in the Army. But, I went home back to the hospital switchboard until hired as a long distance operator. I have pictures of all the boards I worked. See ya on facebook.
@@555pghbob Robert I apologize for the very late response to your message. I was looking at old email, trying to figure out what to do with 9000 saved emails and things got tricky. I ran across this posting, I have no idea if you still receive this or not. But I will say that it is so great to talk to other male operators, to find out that I wasn't the only one because I felt very strange in the beginning. Even my dad told me to leave those women jobs alone, go get a real job. I would have really enjoyed overseas. I did a little of it when they added it to TSPS, just before I was promoted and moved to many different jobs, finally landing in IT. I tried to be smart once on the German Military board and tell a civilian worker the number was busy by speaking German. The room went silent and the caller hung up. Nothing was ever said so I have no idea what I did, but I never tried that word again. As far as Autovon, I know that we had lines into our board in Germany. I could answer and connect to extensions that we served, but was not allowed to connect to lines that went to other cities. I think I mentioned that I did that once, and the boss came up behind me and yanked the cords down. She was a tough cookie. Short woman about 50 something at the time. Was in Berlin on a board during bombing. Stayed and worked what lines were still active as it was a safe underground place. I just did a little article for the TCI news letter if you are a member. Part one has been published, part two should be out soon. I also found another guy who had a similar experience, working at the high school and then in a hospital. I had a good friend, 7 years younger but followed me in jobs and even got a degree and began engineering. He died of Aids back in 1983 I think. He worked the High School, Hospital, TSPS and became a manager in each office I woked in.
Robert, my email is mman405@att.net if you are interested in visiting. I am working on 3 555 pbx boards in my garage, they were used in the movie "Vast of the Night" showing on Netflix now.
I hope to hear from you, I turned 70 this year and lost two of my best telephone co-worker type friends two years ago. The telephone museum where I volunteered was shut down due to the virus and has not opened.
Such high quality materials used back then. That stuff was built to last. plugged and unplugged hundreds of thousands of times over the years. Insane.
I remember back in rural Texas it took a couple of minuets for a long distance call to go through ALL the way to Houston . it had to be put through a couple of switchboards if the circuit was clear .
i cant imagine doing this for more than 30 mins
That's pretty cool. I could see it getting repetitive as a job but it would be fun to do for a while
That is such a pretty board.
My Mom claimed while working for NET, she could hear the conversation and not be heard, by holding the plug partially in-place. This was also an immediate written warning. Supposedly all the operators knew about this, but it didn't happen for this very reason.
I missed getting to learn and use a cord board by couple of years in my high school and at my local police dept. Got to operate their semi-automatic replacements which despite looking like overgrown Call Directors did have some manual operation, much better than the mid 80's Rolm board that replaced the one at my PD - 30 buttons and a digital display couldn't compare and any type of manual control was limited at best. Would love to learn to operate a 551 or 555!!
I think this is neat, I'm 20 years old and I wish this was still a thing.
When phones first came out, it was amazing to me.
Unbelievable. Thanks so much for sharing.
I've got an operational 555 set up in my home, liked seeing this video!
Hey , that is great! I have three that I am trying to get working again. I have connected them to a panasonic pbx that only cost me $75. It gives me dial tone, and with the outside line connected, I can dial out or inside. I found out by accident that I can even transfer calls without using cords. I have another panasonic unit for the house and figured out how to dial a two digit code and then dial an inside extension. I wish I had some phone friends near me, it would be fun to get it working and have a operator party with enough people to create traffic so you could experience operating the board.
A little rough around the edges but he's got the main idea.
Awesome switch board.
oh how i miss them intercept messages lol.
Does anyone know any resources to learn about telephones around the very early 1900s? Specifically around 1905? I know telephone networks had been set up but I'm curious about the very early days of operators. Thanks!
Whitman, Whitman, WHITMAN, goodbye. lol. I know my dads prefix in seattle was cherry. how interesting and clever to pair number prefix's with corresponding words.
aaron ... it's actually the other way around. The words usually came from a town or the name of a section of town and they eventually added a number after that as the exchange grew to need more numbers. In my area "Cherry" might have been the town of Chery Hill, (or the road where the central office was located) and when dialing, the Ch would become 24 plus the rest of the numbers. Most placed started off with 3 digits and grew to 4 digits, eventually going to 7 digits. (plus the area code, and now a 1 before that) Those name prefixes hung around for decades... recalling into the 70s for some areas. Why? It was something people remembered and even used in advertising. In the town where I live now the first telephone was installed in a gas station. (town was too small to have a police department) The number was "Wilton 1" when asking the operator to be connected. The guy was also on the volunteer fire department and less that a quarter mile from the station. He'd get the first call for a fire, go to the station house, sound the fire horn, then drive away in the fire truck. Yes, operators in a small town did a lot for the community. BTW, old Frank never did lock the doors of the gas station when he ran out. It was a VERY small town and you trusted everyone.
I'm employed at a facility which once was a 1920s Hotel. We still have a switchboard which recently started to malfunction. Does anyone know a repair technician?
The switchboard is the same as the one seen in this video.
Imagine that's what people did for a living all day, I'm sure it wasn't constant like that for 8 hours - otherwise they might lose their minds!
I wonder how often those mouth pieces were cleaned out back in the day. I imagine all manner of foul grossness collected in there.
Never. One enjoyed the lip gloss from the previous operator.
Bye bye
that looks extremely stressful. this kind of job will age people fast, and/or start a deadly cancer. No thanks