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From: S.D-REUBEN%KLA.WESLYN%Wesleyan.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU (Doug Reuben)
Newsgroups: mod.telecom
Subject: More Hold Circuit
Message-ID: <8612310112.AA02289@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Sun, 28-Dec-86 17:22:12 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8612310112.AA02289
Posted: Sun Dec 28 17:22:12 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 31-Dec-86 00:47:07 EST
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Organization: The ARPA Internet
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Approved: telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu


        Recently there have been a few posts about how to build an inexpensive
"hold" circuit for home extensions so that you can place one extension on
hold, hang up, and then pick up some other extension phone and continue the
conversation.

        However, it occurred to me, rather than get a whole lot of devices to
do this, why not get just one, and use the extra wiring in the phone lines
to "connect" the device to all the phones. Lets say you have 4 extensions.
If you were to get a hold circuit for each one of them it would get pretty
expensive. However, if have the 3 or 4 wire phone lines in your house, you
could install just ONE hold circuit. The red and green wires (on 4 wire
systems) are the only ones that are usually used. (The black and yellow
might be used to light up the dials of phones like Trimlines and Princesses
so if you want the keep the light this wont work well). This leaves the black
and yellow wires completely free, and these are the wires to use.
On three wire systems, there is only one free wire, and the other two are
used for the phone circuit. Therefore, one of the active phone circuit wires
would have to be used, but this shouldn't create much of a problem.

        Install the hold circuit anywhere along the phone line to the red and
green wires. Then, instead of connecting a toggle switch to the hold unit
itself, connect the two wires for the toggle switch to the black and yellow
wires. Now, at every location that you want a hold feature, connect a toggle
switch between the black and yellow wires. This should be a lot cheaper than
purchasing individual units for each phone, and is probably more convenient
to install as well.

        Personally, if you have Touch Tone phones, I strongly favor the Tone
Hold device, but this is a good alternative if you have rotary or mixed
Tone/rotary service.


        -Doug

        REUBEN@WESLYN.BITNET
        S.D-REUBEN%KLA.WESLYN@WESLEYAN.BITNET
        S.D-REUBEN%KLA.WESLYN%WESLEYAN.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA
        (and probably a lot of other ways too...!!)

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