• 2022
  • Apr
  • 19

My 1996 group photo from Lucent Technologies.

I found this photograph with the Audio Baton photographs, and thought I’d share. This is a group photo of the OS/Other area at the Columbus Works, just as the facility was moving to Lucent Technologies from AT&T.

OS/Other was the area where Craft Access (telephone system test equipment) was built, tested, and repaired. We had a wide range of products, including:

  • MLT-II, Mechanized Loop Test
  • DCTU, Directly Connected Test Unit
  • CAROT, Centralized Automated Reporting on Trunks
  • TNC, Telemetry Network Controller
  • GTP, General Telemetry Processor
  • ARSB, Automated Repair Service Bureau
  • J1x frames of various types
  • A lot of other stuff I’ve forgotten

It was a fascinating area to be thrown into, the age and type of equipment was a who’s who from the bygone ages of telephone switching equipment. To the best of my knowledge, most of the product lines were EOL’d, with some like the DCTU being sent to another location (DCTU went to the Kansas City Works) before being EOL’d at that location.

I have to say I miss working with the people there, and the equipment we had. Just the sheer scale of the operation made it something special, and I’ve always wondered if there is any place like that left today. Who knows, I guess.

lucent_columbus_group1996.jpg

  • 2022
  • Mar
  • 23

I don’t know if I want to.

I snapped this picture years ago while taking some scrap in for recycling. Not only do I not have any clue what they were actually doing here, I’m not sure I want to do it in this somewhat rough area…

skates.jpg

  • 2021
  • Jul
  • 20

Getting set up.

Welcome to Projects from the bottom drawer and wereboar.com. This blog used to be hosted on pygg.xyz, and was hosted on blogger.com before that. Pygg has since been relegated to a (poorly performing) redirect to here, and the blogger links are long gone.

If you’ve arrived at this page by scrolling through my blog, thank you. This is currently both the beginning and end, check back soon for more posts about hamfests, projects, and the random ramble about tech things.

If there’s something you’d like to see more of (or less!) then LinkedIn is a good way to contact me. If you’d like a more user-friendly venue, you can find me on Mastodon. That avenue is fairly new to me, it will generally follow new posts as they appear here, with comments and conversation.

Again, welcome, and thanks for stopping by. See you at the hamfest!

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