TELECOM Digest     Tue, 31 Jun 94 07:07:00 CDT    Volume 14 : Issue 259

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Some D-Day Telecom History (Donald E. Kimberlin)
    Book Review: "Exploring the Internet" by Malamud (Rob Slade)
    Communication Courses at Berkeley This Summer (Richard V. Tsina)
    Dialing Changes For West Virginia and Connecticut (Carl Moore)
    Pac*Bell Plans to Become Internet Provider? (Robert L. McMillin)
    Current List of Areacodes Wanted (Michael Conley)
    How do You Simulate Telco Battery Voltage? (Kevin Centanni)
    ETSI Contact (Joao Perdigoto)
    Why Does Long Distance Cost Extra? (James Baker)
    Cost of Caller ID in PA (Greg Vaeth)

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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 30 May 94 15:56 EST
From: Donald E. Kimberlin <0004133373@mcimail.com>
Subject: Some D-Day Telecom History


As the 50th anniversary of D-Day nears, here are a couple of sntaches
of an incomplete story about the parts radio people played in the
largest invasion so far accomplished by man.  There were at least two
relatively unpublished items of interest to the technically-inclined
about radio in that era:

First, there are lots of recordings of bits of Edward R. Murrow from
London during the blitz, as well as other correspondents like Richard
C. Hottelet dating back to before D-Day.  Bear in mind we are speaking
here of a time before telephone cables crossed the Atlantic (although
21 telegraph cables had been laid dating back to 1866, so "cablegrams," 
competing with RCA's "radiograms" were the business communications norm 
of the era for civilians).

There was telephone connectivity available, dating back to 1927.  In
addition to the one (ever) low-frequency telephone circuit between New
York and London (50 kHz USB eastbound; 60 kHz USB westbound), HF radio
links that operated ISB with channel shifters to produce two 3 kHz
speech channels on each sideband had been put into operation between
various capital cities.  Within the limits of the selective fading and
noise of HF radio, broadcasters could order, in general, either a 3
kHz "message grade" channel or a 6 kHz "program channel," by special
arrangement, occupying the space of two telephone circuits and using
program-equalized channels linking the HF radio plants and the
broadcasters.  The cost was rather high for those, of course.

There was strain on the capacity of the total installed plant, however, 
and in fact, a different mode of operation called "EB circuits" for
"Emergency Bandwidth" was put into place as the U.S.  entered the
European war and Eisenhower's SHAPE settled into the buildup of the
invasion force in England.  "EB" used the channel filtering abilities
of the Type A "band-splitting" Privacy units developed in the late
1930's.  A Type A Privacy was a beastly affair containing iron/copper
speech channel filters and modulators that could split a 3 kHz voice
channel into five sub-bands, and shift each sub-band to a different
range for transmission, while restoring the proper sequence at the
receiver.  Type A Privacies were beastly things, each one for a
typical four-channel HF link occupying THREE 30-inch-wide, eleven-foot
high relay racks.  In addition to shifting sub-bands around, the Type
A Privacy also contained a motor-driven cam switch that could change
the shifting pattern every few seconds.  However, maintaining sync
between the transmitting and recieving Type A's was so difficult that
after only a few years, they were generally operated in a fixed
pattern, perhaps changing the code once a day at most.  (By the early
1960's, they were largely disused, but maintained, as technical
operators would use them for an adjustable band-stop filter when
needed to knock out one sub-band to get rid of QRM by plugging out one
filter.)

But, at the time of D-Day, the Type A Privacies, with some minor
modifications, were pressed into service, to split the nominal 3 kHz
channels into two "Emergency Band" telephone circuits, effectively
doubling the number of circuits by producing telephone circuits of
around 1700 Hz bandwidth.  Thus, if you hear some WWII actualties from
HF radio that sound rather muffled and lacking any sibilance or
fricatives in the speech, it's likely they were on EB circuits.

That's one aspect, fine for public communications where on the U.S.
end, it was AT&T connecting into the telephone network, met on the
U.K. (or in later cases, other country's) government-owned telephone
"Adminstration," as they are called in ITU lingo.  But another,
far-less published aspect has to do with the actual invasion of Normandy 
and the rush across Europe to end the war in just eleven months --
that of the people of a firm called Press Wireless in its support of
actualities from the moving Allied Expeditionary Force.

No small part of operating a full-bore war effort and keeping the
"folks at home" at maximum interest and production was to provide them
news actualities, in an time after "no radio" (WWI) and the Satellite
Era (Vietnam).  The scheme drawn up was to have mobile HF broadcast
transmitting facilities landed as soon as possible after a beachhead
was established, and make origination facilities available to radio
journalists as close to the front as possible.  Fortunately, although
sunspot counts were nearing their eleven-year cyclic minimum in 1944,
solar disturbances were also relatively minor, so HF radio across the
Atlantic was rather reliable.

To accomplish this, the services of a firm called Press Wireless were
engaged.  Few people know much about "Pree-Wee," jargon that grew out
of its telegraphic route address of PreWi, but it actually dated back
to the earliest days of HF radio, PreWi was established in the time
when RCA, Westinghouse and GE tied up purchase of HF radio gear, by
setting conditions under which you effectively had to purchase a
complete transmitter from RCA using the patented high-power vacuum
tubes of GE or Westinghouse, or nothing.  This was tied to a strong
suggestion that "you might as well rent channels from RCA rather than
do so."  Well, that was fine, except then getting RCA to run channels
where the press wanted them was not always realistic.

So, the press associations formed Press Wireless, to purchase
high-powered tubes from Brown-Boveri in Switzerland, and develop its
own HF links.  And, develop a lot, PreWi did.  if you ever get into
those musty old textbooks and IRE Proceedings of the 1920's and
1930's, many of the studies of HF propagation can be found to be of
PreWi origin.  Although not well known to the public, PreWi was well
known in the HF radio community and the press establishment.  And, its
people had built any number of prioneering and/or one-time HF links to
connect sites around the world; places that the public telephone or
telegraph establishments weren't prepared to handle.  D-Day was an
event tailor-made for PreWi to make its largest single effort ever, as
well.

The PreWi engineers built up 50 kW HF transmitter plants into sets of
trailers, complete with an AC power trailer and a studio trailer, and
staffed them with "war correspondents" who were, in fact civilian
radio broadcast engineers seconded to PreWi for the job.  They landed
right behind the troops on the firing line, and were in operation back
to the PreWi receivers at Southampton, Long Island by the night of
June 6, with German bullets still whizzing close by, providing program
channels back to the States for radio journalists of the several
networks from a war-torn Normandy.  When you hear actualities from HF
radio during this week that originated in Normandy, they were on those
PreWi HF links, received at Southampton, then carried into New York on
phoneco facilities to the several radio networks.  (Similarly, PreWi
trailer-mounted links were operating from Juno and Gold Beaches back
to England for the BBC to get its feeds, when you hear British
actualities of the events of D-Day.)

The entire operation continued, moving with the Allied Expeditionary
Force, providing Eisenhower his HF radiotelephone links back to the
telephone networks of England and the U.S. once he moved onto the
continent, and until the war was over and the regular facilities of
the government-owned PTTs were rebuilt in each nation.

You'll likely hear snatches about the heroics of the journalists and
even the Army Signal Corps, which went about placing AM broadcast
transmitters (sometimes jammers) in carious cities as the armies moved
across the Continent, but you're not likely to hear anuything about
the civilians who supported the Allies in war as PreWi provided the
news to "back home."  I know I wouldn't, if I had never had the
privilege of working for Gene Rider, who had been Chief Engineer of
WQAM and later WIOD at Miami, who had himself been one of those
"civilian war correspondents" on loan to PreWi at the time.  Gene
never spoke about it, and only tipped his hand to me a while after I
went to work for ITT, and sent him a postcard from the rather famous
Westbury Hotel in London.  His only real comment, in a reply card was,
"The Westbury" Oh, yeah, I know that place!"  Only then did some of
his comments made over the years fall into place.

(epilogue)

PreWi went on after the war to continue its pioneering work, and was
purchased by ITT.  ITT merged PreWi into ITT's World Communications
operations, which took over the PreWi transmitters at Brentwood and
receivers at Southampton.  One of its later innovations that never
flew was a proposal to put HF radiotelephones onto Captain Eddie
Rickenbacker's Constellations that flew passengers to Latin America.
Regrettably, Captain Eddie declined, saying there was not sufficient
payload space on the Connies to accommodate the function.  I have a
copy of Rickenbacker's letter to the president of PreWi declining the
offer.

So, I hope that little story gives you some interesting insight into a
little-published portion of the D-Day Story.  


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As always Don, thanks for another very
interesting history lesson. An organization here in Chicago is planning
a complete historical re-inactment of D-Day for later this month. They
are going to be using the Lake Michigan beach around Montrose Avenue for
anyone interested in attending.    PAT]

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 12:44:28 MDT
From: Rob Slade <roberts@decus.ca>
Subject: Book Review: "Exploring the Internet" by Malamud


BKEXPINT.RVW  940310
 
Prentice Hall
113 Sylvan Avenue
Englewood Cliffs, NJ   07632
(515) 284-6751   FAX (515) 284-2607
phyllis@prenhall.com 
70621.2737@CompuServe.COM Alan Apt
Beth Mullen-Hespe beth_hespe@prenhall.com
"Exploring the InterNet", Malamud, 1993, 0-13-296898-3, U$26.95
carl@malamud.com
 
The naive reader might be forgiven for thinking that this book is
about the Internet and how to use it.  The author seems to think that
this book has something to do with the ITU's initial interest in, and
later refusal of, publishing the "Blue Book" of telecommunications
standards on the Internet.  The phrase, "technical travelogue," gets
bandied about as if it had some meaning.  (It is interesting that on
the fourth or fifth visit to Paris the author is unable to explain to
anyone, including his aunt, what the phrase means.)  Dan Lynch reports
as Malamud's proposal a statement that makes as much sense as
anything: "Buy my airplane tickets and I'll try to get into as much
trouble as I can.  Then, I'll write a book."  After reading the cover
blurbs, one suspects that if you were to try to design a project
antithetical to the aims and workings of the Internet, one couldn't
get much closer than a six- month trip circling the globe a few times,
dropping in on a number of people engaged in esoteric projects for
interviews.
 
It isn't a travelogue, since that would imply some sort of logical
plan behind the route travelled or the places visited.  It isn't all
that technical, except that the majority of people discussed work in
technical fields.  Some of it has to do with the Internet; much of it
doesn't.
 
What it is, is hilarious.  While novice users looking for documentation 
on ftp will be mystified, net gurus, particularly those with some
knowledge of the players mentioned, will be laughing their socks off.
Even the net-illiterate will get some chuckles out of it -- Malamud has
a dry wit and a keen eye for the absurd.  I can readily sympathize
with his tale of a story killed by a marketing department.
 
I still haven't got the slightest idea what the book is supposed to be
*about*, but it's a lot of fun.


copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994   BKEXPINT.RVW  940310. Distribution per-
mitted in TELECOM Digest and associated mailing lists/newsgroups.   PAT]


Vancouver      ROBERTS@decus.ca    
Institute for  Robert_Slade@sfu.ca 
Research into  rslade@cue.bc.ca    
User           p1@CyberStore.ca    
Security       Canada V7K 2G6      

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 03:45:47 GMT
From: rtsina1@uclink.berkeley.edu (Richard V Tsina)
Subject: Communication Courses at Berkeley this Summer
Organization: University of California, Berkeley



U.C. BERKELEY  Continuing Education in Engineering
Announces 2 short courses on Communication Technology:
 
1.   WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
     (July 26-27, 1994)
 
     There are technical bottlenecks to developing a ubiquitous
wireless multimedia environment: the capacity of the radio link, its
unreliability due to the adverse multipath propagation channel, and
severe interference from other channels.
 
     This course covers the principles and fundamental concepts
engineers need to tackle these limitations (e.g., a thorough treatment
of channel impairments such as fading and multipath dispersion and
their effect on link and network performance).  Topics include:
Introduction to Wireless Channels, Cellular Telephone Networks, Analog
and Digital Transmission and Wireless Data Networks.  Comprehensive
course notes will be provided.
 
Lecturer: JEAN-PAUL M.G. LINNARTZ, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of
California, Berkeley.  His work on traffic analysis in mobile radio
networks received the Veder Prize, an innovative research in
telecommunications award in the Netherlands.  At Berkeley he works on
communications for intelligent vehicle highway systems and multimedia
communications.  Professor Linnartz is the author of numerous
publications and the book "Narrow Land-Mobile Radio Networks" (Artech
House, 1993), the text for the course.
 
2.   COMMUNICATION NETWORKS: FROM FDDI TO ATM
     (August 9-10), 1994)
 
    This course provides an overview of the operating principles and
design guidelines for communication networks, and includes a
description of the popular current networks and a discussion of major
industry trends.  Topics include: History and Operating Principles,
Open System Interconnection, Overview of High-Speed Networks, Physical
Layer, Switching, Trends in Data Networks (FDDI, DQDB, Frame Relay,
SMDS), Trends in Telecommunication Networks (SONET, Fiber to the home,
ISDN, Intelligent Networks, ATM), Topological Design of Networks,
Control of ATM Networks.  Comprehensive course notes will be provided.
 
Lecturers:
 
PRAVIN VARAIYA, Ph.D., Professor of Electrical Engineering and
Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley.  At Berkeley he
works on stochastic systems, communication networks, power systems and
urban economics. He is the author of "Stochastic Systems: Estimation,
Identification, and Adaptive Control" (Prentice-Hall, 1986) and
coeditor of "Discrete Event Systems: Models and Applications"
(Springer, 1988).  He is a fellow of the IEEE.
 
JEAN WALRAND, Ph.D., Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer
Sciences, University of California, Berkeley.  He is the author of "An
Introduction to Queuing Networks" (Prentice-Hall, 1988) and
"Communication Networks: A First Course" (Irwin/Aksen, 1991).
 
For more information (complete course descriptions, outlines,
instructor bios, etc.,) contact:
 
Richard Tsina
U.C. Berkeley Extension
Continuing Education in Engineering
2223 Fulton St.
Berkeley, CA 94720
Tel: (510) 642-4151
Fax: (510) 643-8683
email:  course@garnet.berkeley.edu

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 30 May 94 20:29:40 EDT
From: Carl Moore <cmoore@ARL.MIL>
Subject: Dialing Changes For West Virginia and Connecticut


The Huntington (W.Va.) and Cumberland (Md.) directories have
dialing changes for West Virginia (area 304):

16 or 30 April 1994 -- 1 + NPA + 7D for local to other area codes; 7D
for long distance within 304 is permissive April 30 and mandatory
October 1.  There is at least one case of a local prefix outside of
304 duplicating something in 304: 722 at St. Albans (W.Va.) and
Cumberland (Md.), and I wrote earlier of local calls from Ridgeley
(W.Va.) to Cumberland, Md.

For Connecticut, I found Southern New England Telephone directories
whose effective date is 25 April, and they have 1 + 203 + 7D for long
distance within Connecticut.  Notice that the southwestern corner
(Greenwich and vicinity) is served by NYNEX, not by SNET.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 29 May 94 19:02 PDT
From: rlm@helen.surfcty.com (Robert L. McMillin)
Subject: Pac*Bell Plans to Become Internet Provider?


Has anyone heard anything about Pac*Bell's plans to become an Internet
provider?  It seems perfectly logical that they would do so -- after
all, they *do* own a lot of the physical "plant".  I have heard rumblings 
 from a couple of sources, and wondered if anyone on this forum may
have heard of something.

------------------------------

From: MICHAEL.CONLEY@mogur.com (MICHAEL CONLEY)
Subject: Current List of Areacodes Wanted
Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 03:14:00 GMT
Organization: The MOG-UR'S EMS/TGT Technologies, Los Angeles, CA


Does anyone happen to know where I might acquire an ASCII text listing
of current telephone area codes including the communities that they
serve?

Any replies should be addressed to michael.conley@cabin.com

Thanks!

The MOG-UR'S EMS, Granada Hills, CA: 818-366-1238/8929, @mogur.com


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You might check out the Telecom Archives
for a general summary of area codes and the territories they serve. In
addition, Carl Moore and David Leibold are our resident area code archivists
here, and they may have more complete lists. In fact, I am sure they do.  PAT]

------------------------------

From: kpc@panix.com (Kevin Centanni)
Subject: How Do You Simulate Telco Battery Voltage?
Date: 30 May 1994 13:48:11 -0400
Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC


I have some voice mail cards for PC's such as Watson, BigMouth, and
the NSC TyIn2000.  Each of these cards has two modular jacks -- one
for 'phone' and one for 'line'.  I'd like to be able to send audio
into the telephone and send and receive touch-tones WITHOUT being
connected to an actual working teleco line.  None of these cards
provides the appropriate voltage to power the telephone.

I've tried to just hook a 12V supply directly to the TIP and RING on
my phone ... the phone works (I can hear touch-tones in the receiver)
 -- but I cannot decode those tones with the voice mail cards ...
additionally, there is a very annoying hum (60 Hz?) in the earpiece of
the telephone.

Does someone sell a box that provides the right voltage?  Is this a
simple circuit that I can construct?


Thanks.

kpc@panix.com


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You need to wire the voicemail card in
series to the telephone through the battery -- not in parallel. That
is, the tip of the telephone to the ring of the card, the tip of the
card to the negative of the power supply, and the positive of the
power supply to the ring of the phone. If you have the phone and the
voicemail card wired in parallel to the power supply, they (phone and
card) won't be able to hear or talk to each other. For example, I have
a Dialogic card here which I trip by applying ringing voltage to the
circuit *while the phone is on hook*, thus no open path and potentially
high voltage to harm the card's innards. Press the momentary switch
to apply the ringing voltage; the phone rings, the card sees the ringing 
voltage and responds. I take the phone off hook immediatly to create
the series loop the card is looking for to stay off hook and use it to
do what I want to do with the card. The ringing voltage will wake up
the card, but upon waking if it does not find that current from the
series loop on there it will disconnect and go back to sleep. So remem-
ber, all devices (phones, etc) on one side of the power supply have to
be in series -- not parallel -- with whatever is on the other side (voice
mail card, etc). 

And the way to get rid of that hum is by rectifying the direct current.
It has to be clean. You can't just use any old power supply with the
right voltage. Try one of the 13.8 volt DC supplies from Radio Shack. I
have one and it works fine for intercom use with a couple phones here.
Then get a separate supply for the ringing voltage and wire it in
parallel with the 'clean' DC talk battery. Break the circuit through a
little minature push-button you build into the phone. Superimpose ringing
current on the line by depressing the little button for a second. Listen
to the phone itself ring (at the same time the voicemail card is being
tickled). Let go of that button and lift the phone receiver immediatly;
you should be in business. I use the yellow/black second pair for this.
Green/red first pair operates the phone as always; they are the two wires
that are in series through the Dialogic card and the power supply. The
negative of my ringing current supply is in parallel with the negative
of the talk battery. I bring the positive of the ringing voltage up to
the phone through the yellow wire, break it at the press-switch, and
take it back down through the black wire to be in parallel to the positive 
of the talking battery. **As long as the phone is not off hook when you
press the button for the ringing voltage** the loop will not be completed 
and no harm will come to the voicemail card or the talk-battery.

Now if you find yourself accidentally pressing the button supplying the
ring current while the phone is off hook (and looped in series to the
card), you can eliminate ugly accidents (like blowing up the card) by
using the 'normally closed' contact in the phone itself. (I am speaking
now of a standard 500 desk set type phone). While most contacts in the
phone 'network' (or innards) are 'normally open' and close only when the
phone is off hook, there is one in there which functions the other way
around. It is not used for anything else that I know of, so I take that
ringing current and break it not only at the push button I installed, but
also through the 'normally closed' contact in the phone itself. This
way, when the phone is off hook, you can press the button all you like,
but the ringing voltage will go nowhere because you have that loop cut
off. Of course it never hurts to add a couple fuses in the line to prevent
other short circuits, etc from playing nasty games.   PAT]  

------------------------------

From: perdigot@hp_1.dee.uc.pt (Joao Perdigoto)
Subject: ETSI contact
Date: 30 May 1994 08:54:08 GMT
Organization: Dep. de Matematica da Univ. de Coimbra


Hi,

Does anyone knows if ETSI has an ftp site available?


joao perdigoto

------------------------------

From: jbaker@halcyon.com (James Baker)
Subject: Why Does Long Distance Cost Extra?
Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 18:13:22 -0800
Organization: Northwest Nexus Inc.


As I understand it, 90 percent of the cost phone service is for the
'last mile', ie the local loops. So 10 percent or less is for long
distance. Yet we pay dearly for the use of this 10 percent.  I also
understand it costs more to track and bill for long distance than to
provide the service. Is this correct?

And somebody has to pay for those TV ads ... or do they?

   I know the historical reasons for charging extra for what years ago
was technically difficult (sendind undistorted signals over long
wires). And how business users were thought to be bigger users and
better able to afford long distance. That's not what I'm asking here.
I'm wanting more technical info for a possible article.

   Does anybody know how much the national long distance plant cost to
build? And what would it cost if useage doubled or increased five
times because long distance was "free"?

   In case you can't guess I think it would be great for the economy
and the country as a whole to have one nationwide calling zone.  But
is it technically feasable?

   Comments?


James Baker   Seattle, WA   jbaker@halcyon.com

------------------------------

From: gvaeth@netcom.com (Greg Vaeth at Jerrold Communications)
Subject: Cost of Caller ID in PA
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 00:48:37 GMT


Hi,

An insert in my latest bill contained a notice that Bell Atlantic will
offer Caller ID in Pennsylvania in August.  The cost for residential
customers is $6.50/month, business is $8.50.  Call blocking and
anonymous call rejection are free.  This charge seem outrageous
considering that the equipment to do it is already there, right?  How
else does return call, repeat call and all that stuff work. How does
this rate compare to other states?


Regards,

Gregory Vaeth                 General Instrument
internet: gvaeth@netcom.com   Communications Division
voicenet: (215) 956-6488      2200 Byberry Road
faxnet:   (215) 675-4059      Hatboro, PA  19040

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V14 #259
******************************

