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Clear Box
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The clear box is a new device which has just been invented that can be used
throughout Canada and rural United States. The clear box works on "PostPay"
payphones (fortress fones). Those are the payphones that dont require payment
until after the connection is established. You pick up the fone, get
a dial tone, dial your number, and then insert your money after the person
answers.If you dont deposit the money then you can not speak to the person on
the other end- because your mouth peice is cut off, but, not the ear piece.
(obviously these phones are nice for free calls to weather or time or
other such recordings).All you must do is to go to your nearby Radio Shack, or
electronics store,and get a four-transistor amplifier and a
telephone suction cup induction pick-up. The induction pick-up would be
hooked up as it normally would to record a conversation, except that it
ould be plugged into the out-
put of the amplifier and a microphone would be hooked to the input. So when
the party that is being called answers, the caller could speak through the
little microphone instead. His voice then goes through the amplifier and out
the induction coil, and into the back of the reciever where it would then be
broadcast through the phone lines and the other party would be able to hear
the caller. The Clear Box thus 'clears up' the problem of not being heard.
Luckily, the line will not be cut-off after a certain amount of time because
it will wait forever for the coins to be put in.The biggest advantage for all
of us about this new clear box is the
fact that this type of payphone will most likely become very common.
Due to a few things: 1st, it is a cheap way of getting the DTF,dial-tone-first
service, 2nd, it doesnt require any special equipment, (for the phone
company)This payphone will work on any phone line. Ususally a payphone line is
different, but this is a regular phone line and it is set up so the phone
does all the charging, not the company.
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The idea for the Clear box comes from an article in the newsletter 2600.
The clear box works on 'post pay' coin phones, pay phones that require money
only after the connection has been made. The way this works is: After the
connection is made the mouthpiece of the phone is muted but not the earpiece,
free calls to dial-it services can be made with these phones.
In order to talk to the person you called without paying (NOTE: It is
against the law to do this!!) Take yourself down to your nearby electronics
store and get a four transistor amplifier and a telephone suction cup inductive
pick-up. Put the pick-up on the earpiece and plug it into the output of the
amplifier, and plug a microphone into the input. You then talk into your
microphone and listen normally through the earpiece.
Radio Shack sells an item that wont need much modification,and that
should work the same as the above construction. It is their 'Portable snap-on
handset amplifier' (Part # 43-238) Their description says to put it on the
earpiece and it will boost the callers voice to five times the normal level.
In order to make this function like a clear box one would have to take the
amplifier apart and remove the internal speaker, in it's place, connect the
suction cup inductive pickup. Place the pick-up (which is now the speaker)
to the earpiece of the payphone, and talk into the microphone of the amplifer.
The line will not cut off, and will wait forever for you to put the coins in.
Note also that these types of payphones are not connected to the TSPS in
the same way as normal payphones. The phone does all the charging and not
the Central Office. It is because of this, that a phone connected to the
lines BEFORE the payphone would act just like a normal phone. So get out
your smallest phone, cut off the jack and strip the wires. connect the wires to
two alligator clips. Then you can clip onto the payphone's wires BEFORE they
connect to the payphone, you then have a normal telephone line that you dont
pay the bills on!
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