To the story of 1 September 2011 about a soldier who called home by special communication...
The desire to call home and hear the native voice is inherent in everyone who has taken urgent service. But at the end of the 70s there were no cell phones...The only available opportunity is to go to the city and go to the negotiating point (most of the audience, probably, does not even understand at present what a negotiating point is). There were problems with dismissal.
To get out to the inter-city by the apparatus, which stood in the companies on the switch, it was possible only through the switch, knowing the official passwords, which the soldiers should not know...But in our part, specializing in communications, the problem was solved. In the first, with the help of a "pilot" - a pseudotelephone from a pipe and attached to an isolated number collector, and spots from sewing needles were touched all the telephone wires going to the cross (distribution cabinet). The needles carefully pierced the isolation (no trace remains) and listened to the line, looking for the city.
Finally, having found one, precisely by the same wire as all the lines, they connected to the city and conducted it to the town hall, to the same apparatus.
This ancient apparatus made of black plastic, remembered, probably, the war... There was no numbering disk on it. There was also a problem - the phone had to be connected to the internal switch - the operator had a signal when raising the pipe, it was impossible to parallel the city and the inner line, it was possible to immediately burn up... It was very original - if the device stood in the middle of the box - it was connected to the inner line, but if the device moved to the edge, the magnetic glued to it from the bottom switched it with the help of hercons (these are such magnetically controlled contacts) to the city line.
They called only at night, when the deputy police departed from the headquarters (this was his city number) and all the officers. The absence of the disc was not embarrassing - what it was for the radio telegraphs, with a hand-key knocking the point-tire. If you quickly press the lever of the phone once when the phone is raised, it will correspond to a set of units, two pairs, and so on...Thanks to God, at that time most cities could be typed by code.
Why such clever tricks? Just that telephone apparatus stood just across the door from the guard in part. There was no curse during my service. And the details of the bills for the intercity also did not exist at the time... and maybe the device still works?