A telephone museum in Northern California, dedicated to preserving telephone history
Today we created a short YouTube video of our 200-line Stromberg Carlson XY Switch.
The YouTube video shows the first testing of the system.
Here is some information about the Stromberg Carlson XY Switch:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromberg-Carlson#Switching_systems
Jane has arrived; the Audichron speaking clock complete with Jane Barbe’s voice, has been safely delivered and set up as of 7/17/2016.
The short clip below shows “Jane” at a temporary location. Jane’s phone number will be published at a later date.
Photo Exhibit [2]: One Bell System. It works. “One hundred Years of Telephony in America” 1876 – 1976.
We added 19 additional photos which we acquired recently. We hope you will enjoy these extra photos. There are now 100 photos in total.
Photo Exhibit: One Bell System. It works. “One hundred Years of Telephony in America” 1876 – 1976.
We recently acquired a set of 81 AT&T Photo Center photos. We hope you will enjoy this Photo Exhibit
We had a working demonstration of two Picturephone Model II at the Southern California Telephone Collectors Show on Saturday, March 19, 2016.
The video shows two working examples of the Model II Picturephones. They were setup to show the picture they took on their own screen. In the future we hope to be able to connect them together and maybe even make an actual video call. We are very pleased that Chris Brawner got these working after so many years.
We apologize for the first few minutes of the video not being in focus but hope that you will enjoy this little video.
Photo source:A Kansas Southwestern Bell door tag that would be left by the telephone serviceman reads “When I return I shall be pleased to discuss adequate telephone service in color with you. How does one discuss telephone service in color? Apparently they know how to do that in Kansas.
Found this Bell System Code-Com Set. Do you know what it is?
It is actually pretty cool:
According to the BSP “This set provides a means of communicating over telephone lines for persons who
are handicapped through loss of hearing, speech, or sight.”
We wish it were it better shape but guess it will have to do for now. Let us if you have more information about this device or a nicer one to spare.
This early b&w Bell System News Features photo shows the Code-Com Set.
TOUCH-A-PHONE. This is the Code-Com set being developed by Bell Telephone Laboraties and Western Electric. The set, connected to a conventional telephone, will aloow the deaf-blind to “feel” phone messages in vibrations of a finger pad, and the deaf to “see” messages in coded flashes of light. The circular vibrating pad is on the left. Light flashes some from a recess (black rectangle) in the center of the raised portion of the set. The sending key, used like a telegraph key, is on the right.
Photo JE6910 — Touch-a-Phone — Bell System News Features
Advertising about the Code-Com Set can be found here.
Recently a 1968 Starlite AE 182 model was donated to us. It has a electroluminescent dial ring that is powered by 110 VAC cord right into the phone. Guess you would not want to use this setup on the edge of your bathtub… The Starlite 182 model was Automatic Electric’s answer to Western Electric’s Princess telephone.
The JKL Museum’s step-by-step emergency switching trailer was damaged beyond repair during the Butte forest fire on September 11 2015.
It was the first, and to this date only, item of ‘debris’ that has been removed from the museum site.
It took almost all day to remove the trailer from its location on to the main road. First it needed to be fitted with ‘new’ tires because one of them was burned away completely during the fire and the other one was exposed to extreme heat. It took a lot of maneuvering to get the trailer on the main road because there is no room to turn around on or near the museum grounds.
The following photos give an impression of the whole operation.
This week we received a very generous donation of two large original pencil sketches with a total of thirty vignettes by Stanley Meltzoff (1917-2006). The artwork, created for the 1976 Bell System telephone directory cover, was inspired by a piece known as the Gossips by Norman Rockwell.
Stanley Meltzhoff’s work has appeared in Saturday Evening Post, Life, Scientific American, National Geographic and Sports Illustrated.
We are very excited about this donation. It’s a wonderful piece of telephone history.
In the art work, various characters from American history were depicted on the 1976 telephone book cover, each talking on one of the various types of telephones that were designed since Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone.
The cover commemorates the 200th birthday of the United States and the 100th anniversary of the telephone. It appeared on more than 184 million Bell System telephone directory covers throughout the U.S.
![Photo Exhibit [2] – additional photos available](https://i0.wp.com/www.jklmuseum.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/scan099.jpg?fit=800%2C640&ssl=1)
