The Old Private Line Newsletter, Number 4, April, 1999
The newsletter will now come out twice a month instead of once. That'll make it shorter, consequently easier to read, and more current. Look for the next one this Wednesday. Spring has sprung and with it garden chores. Little writing done Friday, instead I was in the yard most of the day. Looks like two days next week will also be spent gardening. This week I will avoid getting any more poison oak by doing some mountain biking instead of hiking. There's a nice ride outside of Vacaville, Californiaon a little used paved road. It goes up Mix Canyon to near the top of Mount Vaca. Should be a beautiful ride if I can get it done before the next rain.
Continued work on the wireless categories page Wednesday. Haven't finished yet or posted the corrections. Also redid the end of the cellular telephone history page and I am much happier about how it concludes.
April 15 and thereabouts
In the wireless basics article I introduce the different wireless systems before I get into real detail. I'm trying to emphasize how much modern radio systems have in common before describing what sets them apart. Some of the page tries to define the terms PCS and cellular, an impossible task seemingly since modern land based systems permitting roaming are all built on a cellular framework. That structure argues that PCS is indeed cellular with perhaps cellular radio being the best, all encompassing term. I ramble. Be assured the page will be much coherent. And this isn't a semantics battle only. Right now Roseville Telephone is in a major lawsuit against AirTouch Cellular, with the key issue being the definition of cellular and PCS. Check out:
http://www.sacbee.com/ib/news/old/ib_news06_19990331.html
Link now dead. Sheesh.
Aprill 11 -- 13 1998
Hackers! -- have you seen this?
I need comments on my telephone company payphone signal chart. Gives all the right tones and sequences a telephone company payphone uses to interact with Automated Coin Toll Service. Really useful for, uh, uh, uh, for understanding the complexities of a D.C. based signaling scheme. Yeah, that's it. You'll need Microsoft Word 6.0 or higher but it's only 12k. Click here to download.
Some nice links
Lucent's text to speech synthesizer has been operating for at least two years and it keeps getting better. Type in a phrase to hear it spoken to you. Instant sound file. The coffee drinker voice is really funny:
http://www.bell-labs.com/project/tts/voices.html
Link now dead. Lucent never tells me when they change pages. Never. I send them traffic but they don't care. I'm not angry, just upset over why a multi-billion dollar company can't keep their links alive.
From Tomi Engdahl's Telephone technology page. Lots of practical, how to links about how telephones work:
http://www.hut.fi/Misc/Electronics/telephone.html
The following is the web's essential how telephones work article. Lucid writing for the most part but lapses occasionally into these kinds of sentences: "The phone line has an impedance composed of distributed resistance, capacitance, and inductance." You could learn a great deal by going over this article and looking up all the terms:
http://www.egyed.com/phonework.html (link now dead)
You say hello and I say ahoy?
National Public Radio sponsors a nice site featuring interesting or historical sounds. One page discusses the telephone greeting, how Bell preferred "Ahoy" and Edison favored "Hello." You hear an interview in RealAudio of an NPR program featuring Professor Allen Koenigsberg, author of The Patent History of the Phonograph. He thinks the word hello wasn't in use much before Thomas Edison introduced it as a telephone greeting. I think he's wrong since hello has been in print since 1854, as a variation of hallo since 1840, and as a variation of Halloo since 1568. Going back perhaps to hallow in 1440. Check the Oxford English Dictionary if you want to go further. Still, NPR has a nice site:
http://www.npr.org/programs/lnfsound/sound/990319.sow.html
Another dead link. Thanks, NPR!
April 10, 1998
The digital control channel in IS-136
I made big progress on the IS-136 page yesterday. It's still dry as dirt and about as interesting but I think you'll be able to figure out the DCCH with it and the resources I provide. Feel free to comment. I don't discuss layers, by the way, and I save the discussion on how the DCCH actually works for the call processing section:
http://www.TelecomWriting.com/PCS/IS-136channels.htm
Working away despite the poison oak I have. It's on my arms and legs. I took every precaution while hiking last weekend yet I got it. Still, things go on. I'm now trying to clean up the links in the wireless article, after working yesterday on the IS-136 page. Oh, and my sister Vamprella is angry that I didn't mention her the other day, when I stayed overnight at her place. . . .
Despite many precautions I have contracted a great deal of poison oak from my hike and trail clearance work this weekend. I am one hurting puppy, with Technu, caladryl, and ice packs the order of the day. I'm back on the IS-136 article today.
People are so nice. Here's a recent comment from my history series guest book:
"This is a great site! I didn't even know that I wanted to know about telephony until I came across it looking for Nationwide Cellular Service. I am going to tell my brother about your site as he works in the paging industry. Keep up the great work."
The New Newsletter
April 7, Wednesday
The next two links below time out . . .
Spent a nice day Tuesday visiting and talking telephones with Kathy Kennedy, an audio artist. Read her Geography of the Voice for a different look at how communications impacts individuals and society: Here's a short paragraph:
To say that technology alienates us from the voice is far too simplistic. Certain forms can actually help to keep us in touch with what is essential in the voice. How do we maintain that critical element of the human voice through its mediation by technology? How do we ensure that the human voice remains a channel through which the individual speaks? . . .
http://farben.latrobe.edu.au/mikropol/volume2/kennedy-k/kennedy.html
But it wasn't all telephones we discussed. Since she is currently an artist in residence at The Marin Headlands Art Center, we walked to an old Nike missile site just down the road. The headlands, located just a few miles beyond the Golden Gate Bridge, are dotted with old military buildings and equipment. Much of the housing has been converted to an artist's colony, sponsored by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. A Nike missile was on display, its nose cone pulled away to reveal the electronics. A Western Electric logo was clearly visible, the Bell System having done much work on the Nike Missile system. Kathy later made me a nice greeting for private line which she then converted to an analog wave illustration. Why not go to her page to check that out?
IS-136
I hope you all had a great weekend. I am recovering from a long but tough hike on Saturday. I'm putting up my daily comments in a file. Catch up on things you've missed in the last few days by going here. At the end of the month I'll use many of these comments, links, and news, to form next month's newsletter.
Work continues on the IS-136 page for the digital basics article. IS means an interim standard of the Telecommunications Industry Association, the main communication standard producing group in the U.S. IS-136 is the most advanced TDMA scheme, providing PCS like services at either 900 or 1800 Mhz. It's what AT&T wireless uses in most big cities. I've tried describing its digital format with text and diagrams; I'll focus now on the text and provide links to other sites to supply the graphics. I'd really like to make an animated GIF of IS-136's so called digital control channel but I don't understand the DCCH well enough to do that. With some luck I should have it roughed out in two to three days, although I need to go into San Francisco Tuesday so things may be delayed.
What arrived in the mail
Monday was a good day for mail. Not only did the latest Playboy arrive but so did the Ericsson Review. I continue to recommend this publication, the nicest telephone company magazine since the Bell Laboratories Record. It's free, well written, and full of great telecom information. And it comes from Sweden. I look forward to getting it every quarter. Take a look at its web version at this URL and check out their whole site as well. 'Cmon, are you do anything more important?
http://www.ericsson.se/Review/ Now dead
The hardcopy is nicer. Subscribe to it at:
http://www.ericsson.se/Review/subscribe.html
Another dead link!