Description of a Telephone ___________________

A Research Report Presented to The Faculty of the English Department Mabalacat College Mabalacat, Pampanga

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In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Subject Technical and Professional Communication

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By: Ricky Umlas Jennielyn Puno Jonathan David Sarmiento Harold Ian Navarro

February 06, 2012

Mechanism of a Telephone
A telephone is a telecommunication device that translates one's speech into analog electrical signals. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other. The word telephone is Greek for "far away voice". It was developed by Alexander Graham Bell in the mid-1870s, the telephone has long been considered essential to businesses, households and governments, is now one of the most common appliances in the elevated world. Telephones still operate on the same basic principles that Bell introduced over one hundred years ago. If a person wishes to make a call, they pick up the handset. This causes the phone to be connected to a routing network. When the numbers are pressed on a touch-tone keypad, signals are sent down the phone line to the routing station. Here, each digit is recognized as a combination of tone frequencies. The specific number combination causes a signal to be sent to another phone causing it to ring. When that phone is picked up, a connection between the two phones is initiated. Modern telephones come in many shapes and sizes, but they all have the same general features. They consist of a single handset which contains both the transmitter and receiver. The handset rests on the base when the phone is not in use. They also have a dialing system which is either a rotary dial or a touch-tone keypad. Recently, rotary phones have been phased out in favor of the more useful keypad. To alert the consumer that they have an incoming call, phones are equipped with ringers. A telephone consists of five basic parts: the curly cord; mounting cord; switch hook; dial pad; and the telephone handset. Telephone Handset

The telephone handset includes both the receiver enabling you to hear and the transmitter through which you speak. Handsets come in different shapes and sizes and are usually made to work with a telephone from a specific manufacturer. The handset may be directly wired (also called hardwired) to the telephone cord, which in turn is directly wired into the telephone instrument, or there may be a plastic modular connector at one or both ends of the cord. On many telephones, you must leave the handset attached and "off the hook" while using a headset, which is cumbersome. It has two sub-parts: the receiver; and the transmitter.

Cumbersome - difficult to handle because of weight or bulk.

The Transmitter and Receiver

A transmitter (also called microphone) converts the incident sounds into electrical impulses that are conveyed to a remote receiver. It has three sub-parts: the mouthpiece into which a person speaks; diaphragm that vibrates in response to sound waves to produce electric signals and it has 14 eardrums; and carbon chamber that lies behind the diaphragm, between two electric terminals. It contains many tiny grains of carbon. Low-voltage electric current travels through the carbon grains. While the receiver (also called speaker) picks up incoming radio signals and converts them to sound. It has also three sub-parts: diaphragm that also vibrates in response to electric signals to produce sound waves; the electromagnet which is made of metal with a coil of wire around it and controls the vibrations of the diaphragm in the receiver; and electric circuit that helps the electric current travels through the grains. Curly Cord

The curly cord often gets very twisted which can break or damage the wires inside causing interference (static or "noise" on the line). Holding it up and letting the handset dangle at the end, enabling the cord to unwind, can straighten it out. As mentioned above, most handsets are connected to the telephone with a small plastic modular connector that plugs into a jack opening on the telephone. Some handsets are hardwired into the telephone and cannot be unplugged.

Dangle - to hang loosely and swing or sway to and fro.

Mounting Cord

The mounting cord is a straight cord (cable), usually gray or a translucent gray called silver satin. Typical lengths are 6 feet, 9 feet, 13 feet and 25 feet. This cord sometimes has a modular connector at each end, one plugging into a jack opening on the telephone and the other plugging into a jack opening in the wall. In some cases the mounting cord is wired directly to the telephone or the wall or to both and cannot be unplugged. Dial Pad

The dial pad also called the keypad, touch-tone pad, touch-tone buttons. The telephone is equipped with the dial pad having 12 buttons that represent the numbers 0 through 9 and the symbols * and #. Pressing one of the buttons causes an electronic circuit to generate two tones. There is a low-frequency tone for each row and a highfrequency tone for each column. Pressing button number 5, for example, generates a 770Hz tone and a 1,336-Hz tone. By using this dual tone method, only seven tones produce 12 unique combinations. The frequencies and the dial pad layout have been internationally standardized, but the tolerances for variations in frequencies may vary in different countries. The touchtone signals are used not only to dial telephone numbers, but also to interact with Voice Processing systems such as Voice Mail, Automated Attendant. (for Sales press 1, for Service press 2, etc.) and Interactive Voice Response. Some telephones may have a round rotary dial, but this is becoming less common. The signals sent out by a rotary dial telephone are called dial pulse. Rotary dial telephones are still in use. In general, their dial pulses are not recognized by voice processing systems.

Switch Hook

The switch hook refers to those two little plastic buttons that press down on a conventional telephone when you hang up the receiver. When you hang up you are actually breaking an electrical circuit that connected you to the person at the other end while you were talking. On some telephones, the switch hook may be a single bar that depresses when you hang up. Other telephones have a magnetic switch hook inside the telephone, directly under the receiver when it is hung up, that cannot be seen from the outside. When the telephone was not in use, the receiver was hung on a spring-loaded hook; its weight would cause the hook to swing down and open an electrical contact, disconnecting the telephone from the line. When the handset is on the cradle, the telephone is said to be "on-hook", or ready for a call. When the handset is off the cradle, the telephone is said to be "off-hook", or unable to receive any (further) calls. Speaker

Most multi-line and a few single-line telephones are equipped with some type of speaker. A speakerphone enables the person using the telephone to have hands-free conversation with another person at a distant location without lifting the handset.

How the Mechanism Works

The person picks up the handset to make a call. Before making a call, the person listens in the earpiece for a dial tone. This sound indicates that a telephone line is available to handle the call. The caller then enters a telephone number that specifies the telephone being called. The transmitter consists of the mouthpiece into which a person speaks when placing a telephone call. The transmitter has a thin metal disk called a diaphragm inside it. Behind the diaphragm is a container that holds granules of carbon. When a person speaks into the transmitter, the diaphragm begins to vibrate. This vibration forces carbon granules into contact with each other, which varies the electrical resistance. An electric current from the source flows through the granules and into the external circuit. The form of the current that flows out of the transmitter depends on the kinds of sound spoken into the transmitter. A loud sound presses the carbon granules together more tightly; causing the electrical resistance to drop, and a stronger electric current is produced. A quiet sound produces a weaker current. The tone of the speaker's voice also reflected in the kind of sound waves produced and, therefore, on the kind of electric current that is created. The electric current sent out across the telephone lines, then, is a copy of the sounds made by the person's voice. At the receiving end of the telephone line, this process is repeated in reverse order. Electric current flows into an electromagnet that pulls on the diaphragm in the receiver. The strength and nature of the electric current determines how strongly the diaphragm is pulled back and forth. As the diaphragm is pulled by the electric current, it sets up vibrations that can be detected as sound waves. Those sound waves are identical to the ones originally sent out through the transmitter.

Interesting Facts about Telephones 1. "Ahoy" was the original telephone greeting Alexander Graham Bell suggested 'ahoy' (as used in ships), but was later replaced by Thomas Edison, who suggested 'hello' instead. 2. The concept of allocating telephone numbers to individual phone lines was invented by a doctor When a fever epidemic hit a small town in Massachusetts, the local doctor realized that relying on their local telephone operators was risky - what if they all fell sick at once? Their replacements wouldn't know the names of the townsfolk or how to direct emergency calls. The doctor came up with a solution - replace names with numbers, allowing the operator to connect without needing to know the exact name. 3. The very first phone call was "Watson come here, I want you!" It was made on March 10 1876 in Boston, Massachusetts, between Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Thomas A. Watson. 4. As a tribute to Alexander Graham Bell when he died in 1922, all the telephones stopped ringing for one full minute. On the day of Bell's funeral, the USA and Canada paid tribute to him by closing down their telephone systems for a minute's silence, affecting over 14 million telephones. 5. One of the first answering machines was popular with Jews Valdemar Poulsen, the Danish telephone engineer and inventor, patented what he called a 'telegraphone' in 1898. The telegraphone was the first practical apparatus for magnetic sound recording and reproduction, and enabled telephone conversations to be recorded. This was followed by Willy Mller who invented the automatic answering machine in 1935. It was a three-foot-tall machine popular with Orthodox Jews who were forbidden to answer the phone on the Sabbath.

References
Cumbersome. Def. 1. <http://www.thefreedictionary.com/cumbersome> Dangle. Def. 1. <http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dangle > Marshall Brain. How Telephone Works How Stuff Works. < http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/telephone.htm>. Clayton. The Telephone Oracle Think Quest. <http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/00451/telephone.htm> How the Telephone Works. Antique Telephone History. < http://antiquetelephonehistory.com/telworks.html>. Telephone. Wikipedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone> Interesting Facts, Trivia and History about Telephones. Eph. <http://www.eph.co.uk/resources/trivia/> Image of Telephone Handset. Salestore. <http://salestores.com/walker02.html > Image of Transmitter and Receiver. Germes. <http://www.germes-online.com/catalog/88/1053/291874/transmitter_and_receiver.html> Image of Curly Cord. Telecom. <http://www.telecomdealer.co.uk/bt-versatility/bt-versatility-accessories/bt-versatility-curlycord.html> Image of Mounting Cord. Payphone. < http://www.payphone.com/14-Line-Cord.html> Image of Mounting Cord. Payphone. < http://www.payphone.com/14-Line-Cord.html> Image of Dial Pad. < http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00uveEHtKCYYry/Professional-Call-Center-HeadsetTelephone-Dial-Pad-CHT-750-.jpg> Image of Switch Hook. RoyaleTel. < http://www.royaletel.com/> Image of Speaker. < http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00VvZtBMOIwCqN/Desktop-VoIP-Speaker-PhoneVIP300-.jpg> Image of the Telephones Mechanism. < http://www.technology-updates.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/how-telephone-works.gif>