During the '30s, '40s, and '50s in Florida there were telephone
poles along main roads with multiple crosspieces that had dozens of
telephone wires. REA power poles were separate. Driving along the
highway you could hear the telephone wires "singing". Even after
studying electronics, I never figured out how telephone wires
relatively close together "sang". A line in a popular song,
"Wichita Lineman" went: "....I hear you singing in the wires...".
Those of us dating back to the telephone pole era knew what the
singer was talking about.
Gerry
This is interesting. Were they at one time real "telephone poles",
owned and operated by the telephone company? If so, would this have
been the old familiar Bell System of 30 plus years ago?
Or did I have it wrong all these years and the power company owned
the poles? If so, how did the name "telephone pole" originate?
There always seems to be subscriber on this list who knows the
answer to these obscure questions.
As a kid (and later) I remember the phone guy climbing up the pole
with his equipment on a belt and near the top placing a leather
strap like a large belt around the pole so he could lean back and
do his job.
He always had a red phone dangling from his tool belt that I
understood allowed him to call anywhere with no long distance fees.
Sometimes he'd be up there for a long time on the phone. Thinking
about it now, I'll bet he was calling his girlfriend.
Jerry
82 240D
First there were telegraph poles. As telephones came in, they were
stung together with heavy galvanized steel wires on telephone poles.
It was #8 or 9 wire with galvanizing. At the end of the line, there
were only 2 wires on small poles. Generally the electric poles were
on one side of a road, while the telephone poles were on the other.
In dense population, 2, 3 or 4 (or more) crossbars on the poles
carried 10-12 wires each. Each wire was insulated by glass
insulators screwed onto wood posts on the crossbar.
When they came though and buried the telephone, most of the poles and
insulators were trashed. Some adjacent landowners got to keep a few.
Insulators are traded in antique stores. Farmers ended up with a bit
of the wire. It was hardened, and hard to bend, but a lot of it went
to repair barb wire fences. It made good wire to brace corner posts.
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