The Herbert H Warrick Jr. Museum of Communications in Seattle -Lot of images - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Tony_G
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2017, 06:53:44 pm
content: Hi All,I thought I'd do a post on this museum - I've lived in the Seattle area for almost 20 years and I only just found out that this place exists and it was a fascinating visit. I did this with my Dad who used to work for NSW Railways as an electrician out in the Junee area and actually had real life experience of installing similar gear in the various stations and yards in NSW.You can visit their page here -http://museumofcommunications.org/The museum is located in a working telephone exchange building. The building, which I didn't get any photos of unfortunately, is 3 stories tall and it used to be completely full of equipment. Today it handles more circuits than ever and yet the new switching gear only takes up half of the first floor. The museum is located on the other two.They have a small framed piece on the founder of the museum, Herb WarrickI'll drop the rest of the pictures in and do some limited commentary - I really do recommend that you all visit the place if you can - Great walk through the history here. All the images are linked to my IMGUR account where the full resolution ones can be viewed, zoomed, etc.Here is a view of the collection of communication devices over time - From the first ones built around Bell's invention to the later ones:We actually had one of these Mickey Mouse phones at home but ours was a decadic version:This isn't a great shot but here is a range of 'mobile' phones - You can see how they get smaller as time goes on:These are some period photos of building out the communications infrastructure in the Pacific Northwest:These are the first type switches - Operators sat at them and plugged cables to make circuits:The first automated switching systems were these - My Dad put this type in for the railways and I remember taking a school trip to the Warilla exchange and they still had them in the late 70's early 80's:The next evolution was these higher density switches where a moving contactor (for want of a better term) connected the call and then the relays held it connected so the moving part could connect the next call:This is a fully working crossbar system - Still basically the same idea as the previous one but much faster. It also integrated national level direct dialling. It worked out the most cost effective route by using metal cards (you can see that below) and even registered faults on punch cards so that technicians could service them later:This thing is actually the device that created the ring tone for the Seattle area up until fairly recently - Basically a big motor driving a generator at a set frequency from memory:This was the original diagnostics station that was in the building - Technicians would work here to find exchange level faults:I hope you get the chance to go and view this in person.TonyG

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2017, 08:05:31 pm
content: I did a stint or two of night service operator in the military, and the relay based exchange was in the room behind. This was typically quiet after 5PM, when I was the night service till 7AM the next morning, and generally at 11PM the town operator would call, and give me 2 incoming lines to answer, as typically they got no calls after 10PM for the town. Always knew when I was going to get an internal call, as the dial tone generator ( a relay ring oscillator) would power up when a phone was taken off hook on the inside lines.Typical night was 3 calls, as I was informed by the regular operator on arrival, and yes, they did come in from the named internal phones and with the named request at the right times. Just had to dial the required number on the external trunk, patch the call through and record the time and duration, along with the called number, in the log book for the next morning. took a portable TV along for entertainment, watched a lot of infomercials after close of programming there, on the single station that was above the noise in that far off place, as the transmitter was 100km away LOS on the other side of a mountain range.