Talk:Telephone

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[edit] Russian telephones

Why? Phones are no different in Russia then they are in Europe or North America. Why should one area deserve more attention or be given special attention?

Nothing is mentioned about the evolution of Telephony and telecom in the (former) USSR and now in Russia and independent Republics. It seems to me that everything can not be generalized, over there is also technological revolution and it is certainly different that the American and other European systems.

Agreed, but a link to "History of the telephone in the former USSR" or something is rational. Adding it to THIS page is not. This page needs to be a nexsus of a cluster of pages about telephony. Rick Boatright 15:49, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Split page?

Maybe this page should be split into sub-pages?

Proposed page-split:

Would those two things shorten the page enough to get it to reasonable? Or is it better to leave this long version all here? Rick Boatright 15:36, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Alexander Graham Bell -centrism

It's typical American to say tha Graham Bell is considered the Inventor of the telephone. Cause in other parts of the world he is not.

Meucci invented the telephone but it was Bell who was first to patent the idea. I read somewhere that the US Congress acknowledged that Meucci infact was its inventor.

Not exactly. The resolution was more vague than that. There is a separate article about inventing the telephone. Gray and Bell are in this article for starting the industry, rather than for inventing the telephone. Jim.henderson 06:39, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Featured...

Featured on Template:March 10 selected anniversaries (may be in HTML comment)

[edit] Chinese telephones

The source about the chinese invention should have been publicated in Peking Gazette from 1878, but it has not been revealed yet. So if you have access to that paper, i.e. live in China or something, (if it still exists), please have a look at it. An other source is 25th august, 1878, Journal Télégraphique.

[edit] Antonio Meucci recognized as official inventor of telephone

I see in both this article and the Alexander Graham Bell article that supposedly, in September 2001, Antonio Meucci was recognized by Congress ad the inventor of the telephone, being that he created the device in 1849. However, I have searched on this topic and have been unable to find any article on an official government site that states this. I was able to find a supposed document from the House and Representatives on a site, but it had no link to any original source from a government site. I also searched extensively on Antonio Meucci, Alexander Graham Bell and Telephone on both the US Copyright Office website and the US Patent Office website. I was only able to find a patent for the telephone which stated the patent holder as being Alexander Graham. If someone could point me to an article on an actual government site, I would appreciate it. Otherwise, I don't think that should be mentioned on Wikipedia in any article.

[edit] June 2002, not Sept. 2001

June 11, 2002, the United States Congress passes Resolution 269, recognizing Italian-American inventor Antonio Meucci as the true inventor of the telephone. (http://www.garibaldimeuccimuseum.org/congress.html)


  • There were many 19th century mechanical telephones such as that patented by Nathan Stubblefield which worked like the "tin can telephone" used by kids. The sound vibrations strike a diaphragm are conveyed over the string or wire, and are audible at the other end when the string or wire vibrates the diaphragm there. When carefully constructed, these can function over a great distance, even over pulleys for direction change, like the bell pulls used to signal servants' quarters from bedrooms or dining rooms in 18th and 19th century homes. Meucci could have talked to his wife from another part of the house via a speaking tube, such as was commonly used in apartment buildings between the lobby and the apartment, or in a ship between the bridge and engine room, or by using a mechanical telephone. That is a more parsimonious explanation of how he spoke to his sick wife upstairs from the basement, if in fact he did so, than that he anticipated the many years of research it took decades later to develop the Bell instrument. Edison 18:22, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alexander Graham Bell

With all due respect, aside from a resolution of the US house which merely states that Meucci's "work in the ivention of the telephone should be acknowledged" it is Bell who is still widely credited with the invention of the telephone at least in the English speaking world. The passage of one non-binding resolution of one half of one branch of one government (that is the House (not the whole congress) of the United States) does not justify this article stating that Bell is not the inventor of the telephone. Moreover, the House resolution only states that his work be acknowledge, he is not explicitly credited with the invention of the device. - Jord 17:58, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The fact that most of the people think that is bell the inventor of the telephone doesn't mean anything, the telephone's invention affair has been discussed for a long time.
The fact that only a branch of the governement has voted can be considered pure patriotism.
The worst thing is that accordingly with official biography of Meucci the invention has been stolen by Bell and it's not Bell that dicovered the telephone later.
The decision of the house of US governement is to admit on the base of a huge quantity of historical evidences how the things really went.
In Italy it's already known to be Meucci the inventor and other countries simply have no interest in the case.
In case of no replies I'm going to change the incipit of the article in a more NPOV way.

--Zimbricchio 8 July 2005 10:37 (UTC)

For Ghu's sake... the article lists a HUGE BUNCH of people who worked on Phones. _NO ONE_ "invented the telephone." It was a multi-year collaberative effort involving a LOT of people on several continents. Bell, arguably, brought all that together (most notably Gray's liquid microphone) and create a PHONE COMPANY... but the thought that Bell and Watson invented the telephone "de novo" is just silly. The legal record is quite clear albeit complex, the historical record, because these Bozo's kept making their claims in NEWSPAPERS is very very very confused and clouded since people would make all SORTS of claims that weren't real in the papers. Bottom line, no one person invented the telephone. lots of people, Reis, Meucci, Bell, Grey, Edison, Hughs, Boursel, Varley _all_ contributed to that invention. What's really interesting, ofcourse, isn't the invention of the telephone, it's Bell's putting it all together and creating a successful telephone COMPANY. batteries, switches, operators, instruments, the rental thing, the patents... Hell of a thing. Rick Boatright 8 July 2005 13:52 (UTC)


Is the problem here a misunderstanding of the term telephone. In its actually definition of a device that converts sound into a form that can be transmitted long distances, and thus was clearly not invented by Bell. But the term telephone is represented in popular culture as something that allows you to speak to someone a long distance away and have a conversation. Bell was the first person to build a device to do that wasn't he? Ajmayhew 07:57, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

It depends on how long is "a long distance". All of the early telephone inventors had a problem finding an efficient transmitter (microphone) and an efficient receiver. Supporters of Reis argue that Reis was the first and he had witnesses who could hear and understand transmitted human speech. But Reis thought his microphone interrupted the current like a buzzer and that discredited him and his witnesses. Bell finally suceeded in transmitting clear speech on March 10, 1876 in his famous "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you." message, but Bell used the liquid transmitter invented a few weeks earlier by Elisha Gray and Bell used an electromagnetic receiver described in one of Gray's earlier patents. The Bell Telephone Company almost went bankrupt because Bell lacked an efficient microphone. Edison invented the carbon microphone, and three other inventors Francis Blake, Emile Berliner, and Henry Hunnings, whose patents were bought by Bell, developed an improved version that saved the Bell company from extinction. The best one can say about Bell was he was the first to be granted a patent that claimed the essentials of a practical telephone. Some of that was his lawyer's doing. The actual invention of the first practical telephone using a carbon granules microphone and an iron diaphragm electromagnetic receiver was the work of several others. Greensburger 03:06, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] January 2006,

Sure a lot of people created the telephone, but after Meucci! Do you want to see one of the telephones created by Meucci? Try going to Tuscany, Italy, at the theater called TEATRO LA PERGOLA. You can find a telephone created before 1833. Meucci, from 1849 started to create and produce over 30 different models of telephones, even a telephone to use under the sea. How old was Bell the thief in 1849? and the others? If you cannot find something on the subject is due because you speak english only. Try reading http://www.radiomarconi.com/marconi/meucci.html

In 19th century patent litigation, it was common for those who wished to cash in on someone else's invention to make similar devices to the successful invention and claim they were old, when in fact they had merely tinkered unsuccessfully. They would even bring in family members and old neighbors to swear they saw the device in operation decades before. Claiming that there is an 1849 telephone in a theater in Tuscany would be more convincing if it was described in credible sources, and if there were some publications from around 1849 mentioning its successful operation. Nationalistic pride is not a substitute for proof in the form of verifiable sources. Lots of mid-18th century experimenters built things that made noise, but no one before Bell understood that intelligible speech required a contunuously variable electical current to mirror the acoustic waveform of the speech, thus they built "make and break" transmitters. Edison 18:39, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thief and Liar

What do you mean with "credible sources"? If you don't believe go there and see with your own eyes. In Tuscany the telephone exists. Or go to Cuba. Isn't LaCorte a reliable source? Did you read John LaCorte? The president of the American IHS said: <<We can only credit Mr. Bell with commercializing the invention of Meucci. In the tradition of fair play and honesty, let Meucci have the honor to be recognized as the "Father of the Telephone" in the encyclopedia. Let Mr. Bell have the money.>> And about the US House of Representatives with the House Resolution # 269, 107th, did you read it? "Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives to honor the life and achievements of 19th Century Italian-American inventor Antonio Meucci, and his work in the invention of the telephone. Whereas Antonio Meucci, the great Italian inventor, had a career that was both extraordinary and tragic; Whereas, upon immigrating to New York, Meucci continued to work with ceaseless vigor on a project he had begun in Havana, Cuba, an invention he later called the `teletrofono', involving electronic communications; Whereas Meucci set up a rudimentary communications link in his Staten Island home that connected the basement with the first floor, and later, when his wife began to suffer from crippling arthritis, he created a permanent link between his lab and his wife's second floor bedroom; Whereas, having exhausted most of his life's savings in pursuing his work, Meucci was unable to commercialize his invention, though he demonstrated his invention in 1860 and had a description of it published in New York's Italian language newspaper; Whereas Meucci never learned English well enough to navigate the complex American business community; Whereas Meucci was unable to raise sufficient funds to pay his way through the patent application process, and thus had to settle for a caveat, a one year renewable notice of an impending patent, which was first filed on December 28, 1871; Whereas Meucci later learned that the Western Union affiliate laboratory reportedly lost his working models, and Meucci, who at this point was living on public assistance, was unable to renew the caveat after 1874; Whereas in March 1876, Alexander Graham Bell, who conducted experiments in the same laboratory where Meucci's materials had been stored, was granted a patent and was thereafter credited with inventing the telephone; Whereas on January 13, 1887, the Government of the United States moved to annul the patent issued to Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation, a case that the Supreme Court found viable and remanded for trial; Whereas Meucci died in October 1889, the Bell patent expired in January 1893, and the case was discontinued as moot without ever reaching the underlying issue of the true inventor of the telephone entitled to the patent; and Whereas if Meucci had been able to pay the $10 fee to maintain the caveat after 1874, no patent could have been issued to Bell: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the life and achievements of Antonio Meucci should be recognized, and his work in the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged." Isn't it a credible source? Have you ever studied/read the life of Meucci? http://www.esanet.it/chez_basilio/us_bell.htm Italy, Cuba and USA. In three different nations Meucci tested and showed his different devices, starting from 1833-4 (Bell didn't exist) to 1861 (Bell is only 14 years old!). As you can see, "Nationalistic pride" stop you and people like you to accept the truth. Bell was a liar and thief. He invented nothing. Jack 23:00, 26 January 200 (UTC)

[edit] Terri Pall vs. George H. Sweigert for credit for invention of cordless phone.

Does anyone have a US Patent Number from 1965 for Teri Pall's invention of the cordless phone? There was another inventor, George H. Sweigert, that filed in May of 1966 and received a patent in June 1969 that I found. The patent is listed in the patent section. I have had this question up about trying to find Teri Pahl's patent now for about a year with no one responding to it. The section of cordless phone crediting Teri Pahl has been added since but with no citation.

the following:

====Teri Pall====
"At a time when most people unthinkingly make phone calls from their cell phones wherever they happen to be, few know that the first cordless phone was invented by a jazz musician named Teri Pall. She invented the cordless phone in 1965 but could not market her invention as it had only a two mile range. Although she sold her rights to the cordless phone, Teri Pall is recognized as having revolutionized cordless communications." [1]

was a direct quote from the link included, and thus a probable copyvio. Also, since it was in the middle of the 1870's stuff, if we WANTED to include it it would go further down the page under Cordless Phones in the 60's....Rick Boatright 02:43, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Cordless phones that only go to the front yard sell pretty well. There must be other reasons her invention failed.--Gbleem 12:45, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology

Is phone really a Greek word? www.danon.co.uk

Yup. It comes from the Greek words Tele, meaning distant, and phonos, meaning voice. smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 06:17, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] overdue cleanup

Added cleanup tag at top. THis article is a mess. I've moved the invention of the telephone stuff to the pre-existing link Invention of the telephone. I move the Tesla stuff, which was about radio, to the appropriate radio pages. I put in a short exerpt from Timeline in place of the long history thing. At a minimum, this article needs a description of how a telephone WORKS...... See Telegraph for an example of what this article needs to become. Next in plan... move the huge lists of stuff to "list" pages. Rick Boatright 8 July 2005 16:11 (UTC)

[edit] Revert Linkspam???

User Mendel did a massive revert of many editors work, reverting all the way back to the Revision as of 18:55, 29 March 2005, calling it linkspam.

I re-verted that.... Rick Boatright 22:08, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

As I already explained on my talk page, it was not intentional. Don't worry, mistakes happen -- that's why there's a page history. — mendel ☎ 16:19, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Echo

I quote from the book "Understanding Telephone Electronics" by John L Fike Ph.D, PE. Adj Professor of Electrical Engineering, Southern Methodist University, Staff Consultant , Texas Instruments Learning Center. and George .E. Friend, Consultant, Telecommunications, Dallas, Texas and Staff Consultant, Texas Instruments Learning Center. Chapter 1, page 15.

"The amount of echo delay depends upon the distance from the transmitter to the point of reflection. The effect of the delay on the talker may be barely noticable to very irritating, to downright confusing. Echo also affects the listener on the far end but to a lesser degree. Echos are caused by mismatches in transmission line impedances which usually occur at the hybrid interface between a two wire line and a 4 wire transmission system. The effect of echo is reduced by inserting a loss in the lines." (Italics and bolding all mine). I rest my case, but an admission of error and an apology from Omegatron would be nice.Light current

Not that I want to insert myself into the middle of an argument, but I don't see where Omegatron has made any recent edits to either the Telephone article page or this talk page. Can you give us some context for what's being discussed here?
Atlant 21:48, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Photo request

With all those pictures, would it be possible also to have one of a phone with a round dial? For most of their history, that was the way telephones were built, but kids today have never seen one. Also, there ought to be a date attached to each photo. The legend "telephone" is pretty unhelpful; "telphone, 19xx" would tell us something. --Doric Loon 06:48, 11 October 2005 (UTC) --Johnhardcastle 11:46, 30 November 2006 (UTC)that would be nice

[edit] Request for clarification

What is telephony? Why am I redirected here from telephony? 66.215.181.211 00:11, 19 October 2005 (UTC)Eric

Telephony should probably be mentioned with a link to the dictionary. --Gbleem 12:47, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect

I noticed while searching through List of HTML decimal character references that ☎ is a redirect to Telephone. While I don't suppose it does any harm, is there any use to this redirect? smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 16:48, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd guess that it's just humour. There are a fair amount of humourous redirects laying around Wikipedia and it's certainly not likley to cause much harm.
Atlant 14:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
In answer to your question, it does have some uses. I saw this symbol being used in someone's signature as a link to their talk page. I wasn't sure what the symbol was supposed to represent, as it looked a lot like a gem or a loaf of bread. So I posted it in the URL and pressed "enter," but there wasn't a page about it (I didn't figure there would be.) nor a redirect. To find out what it was, I had to post it on Microsoft Word and enlarge it to a size 72 font. This redirect saves overly curious people the trouble of having to open up MS Word, post the symbol there, highlight it, and then enlarge it. It is kind of humorous, too. ⇒ JarlaxleArtemis 03:43, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

There's also ☏. ⇒ JarlaxleArtemis 04:52, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Handset/headset jack? =

I came here looking for it. i will keep loking and if i find someinfo i will post an article about it here, but if it never get created, someone can fill this up. I'm talking about the jack that connects the wired telefone to the headset, the one that looks like a rj11 but with 4 spaces all filled with 4 connectors (probably fase/neutral for speaker and mic)

A lot of folks refer to this as an RJ11 handset plug, but I suspect (along with you?) that's not technically correct. A few folks call it an RJ09 but RJH is another term; neither seems to appear in the USOCs; Wiki's Registered jack article discusses this.
Atlant 14:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is there a calling/communication by telephone article?

I'm looking for an article covering international calling habits. Can someone give me a hint where to look for it? --Gneer 15:13, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sharing telephone lines

Is there a wiki page about line sharing (as featured in the movie Pillow Talk)? Apparently this used to be common at least until the 1960s. —Tobias Bergemann 11:11, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

See Party line#Telephony. And if that isn't already linked from the Telephone article here, could you please be bold and find a place to make reference to that?
Atlant 12:11, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] contradiction timewarp

"1861 Reis manages to transfer voice"

Later it says

"1875 Alexander Graham Bell first transmits voice."

"first" implies a timewarp here. One might take away the word "first", or make it clear what the difference is.DanielDemaret 15:28, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Reis' phone was designed to do make and break transmission, so that the tone quality and volume were not transmitted, only the frequency, that is, pitch. Yet one could recognize it was a voice, and perhaps make out the word being said. Yet it was not considered "articulate speech" and many different words or phonemes might be indistinguishable. Butu to cloud the issue, Berliners phone was like Reis' transmitter would be isf it were adjusted so the metal contacts were loosely touching, so that the resistance decreased and increased with sound vibrations. Berliner improved on Reis design/. The Edison improved further by using carbon contact instead of metal to metal. Berliner's or Reis' would not stay in adjustment and only worked sporadically, but Edisons was louder and worked more consistently with better articulation. Blake improved on Berliner by adding carbon (after Edison). Incremental improvements continued.Edison 03:16, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Micky Mouse phones

I think there needs to be a section on Micky Mouse phones. What do you think? It might make it a bit more interesting!

[edit] Salutation

Is it true that Bell proposed that the standard salutation when answering a phone be "Ahoy-hoy"? --71.98.12.111 21:30, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

My understanding was he just recommended "Ahoy." The Simpsons Mr. Burns says "Ahoy-hoy" when answering the phone, likely a reference to Bell's recommendation. AnthonyMartin 05:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

OK Then who came up with answering the phone with "HELLO"? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.58.243.54 (talk • contribs).

[edit] sorry

sorry for acidently putting something i wanted to type on the disscusion page on the wrong page, but im new to using discustion pages(and sorry for my bad spelling but i only have 2 munutes left), but the pictures for 2 (or so) of the older phones are quite bad (bad angles)(im talking about the first picture in particular)(and i cant change them myself because everything i do turns out to be a disaster) --Yet-another-user 14:15, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edison's telephone patents

The patent application Edison filed on April 27, 1777 did not include an induction coil and did not use the word "carbon". It did use the words "plumbago and equivalent material". Plumbago is graphite which is a form of carbon, but not the amorphous carbon that was successfully used a year later. I removed the references to induction coil and added patent references. Greensburger 05:17, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History

We need a proper article at History of telephone.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 18:40, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Replaced Chuck Norris with 'Antonio Meucci demonstrates a device later called a telephone' under 'Early Development' as the Timeline shows. I hate Chuck Norris nowadays, i never found him that great anyway.User:Desolationwilliams 17th November 06 16:45pm GMT

[edit] Vandalism?

Please explain the entry under "Early history": Was there an inventor named Chuck Norris and the article simply contains a link to the actor of the same name? -> we need disambig page

Or is this simple vandalism? Tierlieb 10:17, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Where are you seeing that? Wahkeenah 12:12, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
That was just vandalism.
Atlant 12:48, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Power

You would think that the article would explain why an ordinary house telephone can be used during a general power outage. Is it interesting to know the source of your telephone's electric power?Lestrade 18:44, 7 September 2006 (UTC)Lestrade64.12.116.10 18:43, 7 September 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

This is your chance to be bold!
By the way, for a long time, my house phone didn't work during power failures, apparently because my local phone company didn't realize that the batteries had died in their SLC-96 neighborhood concentrator, and the dang thing was only runnable when the line (mains) power was available. :-)
Atlant 18:51, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Two "See also" sections

There are two "See also" sections in this article. Shouldn't they be merged? JIP | Talk 11:47, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I did the merge and pointed to "History of telephone" disambiguation page which is a collection of see alsos. The history buffs and the current technology buffs are mostly different people and so it is better to keep most of the history stuff off the main Telephone page, except for the brief History section. Greensburger 16:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External Links

These links were deleted from the Telephone article:

Omitting external links with advertising, I think the following two should be restored because they contain interesting historical information and links to pictures and other information on early telephone equipment:

Greensburger 22:24, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Can you cite them as references at the appropriate point in the article? Wikipedia isn't a directory, and having an external links section with a few resources (even good ones) is an open invitation for people to add their favorite linkspam. Jehochman (Talk/Contrib) 00:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What's a handset?

Someone asked me today for the correct words for the various parts of an ordinary 20th Century desk telephone, having found no satisfaction in the Wikipedia article. That's what this article needs. Too much space here is about deep questions of invention and early development, and not enough about what is a telephone and what are its parts. History is wonderful; most of it however belongs in history articles rather than one that will be first found by the curious, ignorant majority who don't know whether "receiver" is the correct name for that thing shaped like a dogbone or dumbbell that they hold in their hand. 162.83.210.180 18:39, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 2, 3 or 4 elementary elements?

I figure, for the purposes of this article, the system has two elements: 1) Telephone 2) Connection Of course the ways these connections are made are wild and wonderful, but for this article they are all one element. This is, after all, an article about the telephone. Other articles are about patents, corporate skullduggery, time slot switching, paper vs plastic insulation and other important topics, but this one shouldn't go chasing wild and wonderful beasts across the county line and into someone else's article. There's plenty to say about the telephone itself, that isn't being said here. Jim.henderson 01:30, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chopping out history

An anonymous editor today chopped away almost all historical sections. This was a basically good idea gone wrong by clumsy overdoing. I intend to chop more delicately in the next few hours, leaving a few items in the timeline that are relevant not to credit, but to the form of the telephone. "Who invented" is a matter best left to articles that already exist on that topic. Later on, I hope add more information about early telephones, such as power, transmitter type, ringing, 1 vs 2 vs 4 wire connections, telegraph keys built into the telephone set, separate ring boxes, etc. Jim.henderson 20:24, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Early commercial instruments

Ta-ta for now. Please feel free to trim, expand, correct, link or otherwise improve the new section. Jim.henderson 22:41, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Civil War

Is this 1933 Popular Science clip [2] just stating unsubstantiated claims, or was there really a telephone in use before the Civil War? AnthonyMartin 05:47, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

As mentioned in invention of the telephone non electric telephones were in use for centuries before electric ones. Jim.henderson 14:24, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Courtesy phones

I've looked all over the Internet and I can find very little information about "courtesy phones". I think it should be mentioned here somewhere. I'm still not completely sure what a courtesy phone is. --Max 19:17, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

And what is a "white courtesy phone"? --Max 19:30, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

You are entirely correct; it is an absence nearly as grievous as the one noted in the following section, and easier to repair. I just now created the courtesy phone article and hope others will expand, correct and improve it. Jim.henderson 00:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How a Telephone Works

I believe this article needs a good, solid explanation of how a telephone works. Complete with a diagram or two. I was researching how telephones work (for a school project) and was astounded that Wikipedia didn't have this in its main page on telephones. My old set of encyclopedias is better in this respect! Though if there is a page that includes a nice explanation of how telephones work, I'd love for someone to connect me. :) Jedi Shadow 05:05, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Quite right. I can't help with a picture, but it seems proper to put together a text on the talk page and transfer it when it's ready. At that time it will be wise also to curtail the description of the two parts of the phone system. Jim.henderson 23:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inside the telephone

The telephone handles two kinds of information: signals and voice. The signaling equipment consists of a bell to alert the user of incoming calls, and a dial to enter the phone number for outgoing calls. A calling party wishing to speak to another telephone will pick up the handset. The switchhook puts a resistance short across the wires, causing current to flow. The telephone exchange detects the current, attaches a digit receiver, and sends dial tone to indicate readiness. The user pushes the number buttons, which are connected to a tone generator in the phone, which generates DTMF tones. The exchange connects the line to the desired line and alerts that line.

When a phone is inactive, that is on hook, its bell, beeper or other alerting device is connected across the line. When someone calls this phone, the telephone exchange applies a high voltage pulsating signal, which causes the sound mechanism to ring, beep or otherwise alert the called party. When that user picks up the handset, the switchhook disconnects the bell and puts a resistance short on the line, confirming that the phone has been answered. Both lines being off hook, the signaling job is complete. The parties are connected together, and may converse.

The voice part of the telephone consists of a transmitter (often called microphone) and a receiver. The transmitter is basically a variable resistor, whose resistance varies in response to the acoustic pressure waves produced by the voice. The resulting variations in electric current are transmitted along the telephone line to the other phone, where they are fed into the coil of the receiver, which is a miniature speaker. The varying electric field in the coil causes it to move back and forth, reproducing the acoustic pressure waves of the transmitter. Thus, it speaks.

Oof, at a glance it appears complete. Anyone care to criticise and correct my spelling, level of vocabulary, technical knowledge, principles of organization, anything? Please? Nicer to do it here than wait until it appears in the article. Jim.henderson 00:11, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

"The hookswitch puts a short across the wires" ? That suggests less than a tenth ohm. Why not give the standard number of ohms or a range? "The transmitter is basically a variable resistor" ? That's what it was until phones with transistor amplifiers replaced the old carbon mics. Greensburger 05:52, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

All right; I seem to recall that it was 300 ohms, but don't know whether that was standard even in the Bell System, much less around the world, so I just corrected "hookswitch" to "switchhook" and added the term "resistance short". I don't know how many different kinds of transmitter are in use now, and am undecided whether to qualify the Edison microphone with some term like "until the late 20th century" or replace it with a less precise, more general yet clear description. I'll get some sleep on it and maybe wake to see that someone has proposed the perfect phrase. Anyway, thanks for the suggestions. Oh! Is there no switchhook article? Jim.henderson 07:33, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, nobody rewrote it for me, so here's a second draft and I hope it's not getting too long. Jim.henderson 23:40, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The telephone handles two kinds of information: signals and voice, at different times on the same twisted pair of wires. The signaling equipment consists of a bell to alert the user of incoming calls, and a dial to enter the phone number for outgoing calls. A calling party wishing to speak to another telephone will pick up the handset, thus operating the switchhook, which puts the telephone into active state or off hook with a resistance short across the wires, causing current to flow. The telephone exchange detects the DC current, attaches a digit receiver, and sends dial tone to indicate readiness. The user pushes the number buttons, which are connected to a tone generator insde the dial, which generates DTMF tones. The exchange connects the line to the desired line and alerts that line.

When a phone is inactive, that is on hook, its bell, beeper or other alerting device is connected across the line through a capacitor. The inactive phone does not short the line, thus the exchange knows it is on hook and only the bell is electrically connected. When someone calls this phone, the telephone exchange applies a high voltage pulsating AC signal, which causes the sound mechanism to ring, beep or otherwise alert the called party. When that user picks up the handset, the switchhook disconnects the bell, connects the voice parts of the telephone, and puts a resistance short on the line, confirming that the phone has been answered and is active. Both lines being off hook, the signaling job is complete. The parties are connected together, and may converse using the voice parts of their telephones.

The voice parts of the telephone consist of a transmitter (often called microphone) and a receiver. The transmitter, powered from the line, puts out an electric current which varies in response to the acoustic pressure waves produced by the voice. The resulting variations in electric current are transmitted along the telephone line to the other phone, where they are fed into the coil of the receiver, which is a miniature loudspeaker. The varying electric current in the coil causes it to move back and forth, reproducing the acoustic pressure waves of the transmitter. Thus, it speaks.

When one or both of the parties "hang up", that is on hook, no DC current flows in one or both lines and that signals to the exchange switch to disconnect both lines. Greensburger 00:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Y'know, it's looking pretty much complete to me. Tomorrow, if it still looks good, I'll use it to replace the "Telephone" section of the "Telephone" article (which is a dumb section name anyway). Please, as I said, give advice or simply improve this draft. And maybe there should also be a "Switchhook" article. Jim.henderson 23:40, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
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