The article describes how the Restoring the Signal exhibit at Stone Branch Center for the Arts grew from Terre Jenkins’s desire for an interactive experience that would slow people down and encourage quiet engagement, which I then expanded into a fully functioning, hands-on exhibit centered on 150 years of communication technology. It highlights my fascination with vintage technology, the technical work involved in making the phones operational, and the variety of devices included, such as rotary phones, antique desk phones, a teletype machine, and novelty phones like the ketchup phone. The article explains that visitors can dial exhibit-only numbers to hear 100-word stories, music, jingles, oral histories, and eventually choose-your-own-adventure recordings, and it also encourages the community to contribute their own audio. It also emphasizes the educational and nostalgic aspects of the exhibit by discussing old telephone etiquette, party lines, expensive long-distance calls, early cellphone plans, and plans to expand the exhibit with hand-crank wall phones that can call each other directly without needing a phone company.

More Details

One of the things I like most about this article is how many people and businesses were involved around town. Play Favorites provided plenty of radio jingles. Rather than giving each one their own phone number to dial, I set up a single phone number that plays one at random each time you call.

The “technical difficulties” referenced in the article were the changes in voltage and type, depending on whether you were talking (42-52V DC) or ringing the phone (70-105V AC).

The phones donated by the Unity Masonic Lodge may have been from the 50’s, but the lodge itself was chartered in 1870.

The clamshell phone painted by Mary Carnahan is a touch-tone phone. When she asked if I had any need for the phone, I declined, saying I already had what I needed for touch-tone with a speakerphone, but suggested that if she were to paint the phone, it would be welcome to join the exhibit.

I purchased the wall-mounted crank phone at Happy Creek Antiques, along with two rotary phones, which have not made it into the exhibit yet. It’s fairly easy to swap phones in the exhibit to keep everything fresh.

The Crank phones are currently being set up to talk to each other. I just received some magnets that were remagnetized for a ringer box. In addition to restoring magnets, the magnets needed to be cleaned and oiled. I’m able to ring the bells using the system in place, but I can’t connect the phones to my electronic devices. This is because they generate their own A/C voltage and have their own DC voltage from batteries. I started working on protection circuits, such as optocouplers, for ring pattern detection and to block AC voltage. However, given the complexity of getting them to work, “modern” analog phones may be overkill. I may just have the two crank phones only talking to each other to keep things simple.

Regarding the unnecessary need for a phone company back in the day of crank phones, the phone company served more as a switchboard to connect other lines to yours and as a supplier of phone batteries to provide the DC voltage for talking.

After the reporter came by, a new addition to the exhibit was the perpetual calendar globe.

I hadn’t looked up the price of a long-distance call in the 1920’s, but I can only imagine the number of operators involved in manually connecting you between the east and west coasts to justify the $20 ($500 today) cost for three minutes. In the 1960s, direct-dial long distance (DDD) was still expanding, and many calls required an operator to manually connect you. Long-distance calls were still expensive, and often reserved for holidays, emergencies, and major life events.

The three-minute timer hourglass I have on display mimics a lucite hourglass timer with a gold rotary phone from the 1960’s. It advertises the AT&T Supplier Diversity Program with a toll-free number (800) 321-MWBE (Minority/Women Business Enterprise), indicating it was made in the late 1980’s to 1990’s.

Today, unlimited long-distance is included in monthly plans, and people are more focused on metered bandwidth for internet access over cellular phone networks.