THE VIOLET BOX

Picture the scene ..... a payphone in a rural or suburban area, where all the telephone wires are overhead ..... next to the phone box is a telegraph pole with only one wire going down it ..... no prizes for guessing where it goes to. It might at first sight look like a prime site for beige boxing. However, there are obvious disadvantages to beige boxing here, like getting caught ..... thus, the violet box was created. Basically it is a way of emulating some beige box functions without the actual beige box, but it does have the same requirement of needing physical access to the line. *WARNING* The person on the other end may very well twig you are using this device. Only phone people you can trust.

HOW TO MAKE IT

Get a 470 ohm resistor and a pair of crocodile clips. Connect a crocodile clip to each end of the resistor. That's it. I was going to call this the "yellow, violet and brown box" but I decided that name was too long, so I'll stick to just violet, because it sounds nice.

HOW TO USE IT

First, you need a beige boxing point that is not too far from the phone. Clip one leg of the resistor on, leave the other end for the time being. Lift the handset, put in your money and key the number. As soon as it starts ringing out, it's action stations! Clip the other side of the resistor on and dash back to the phone. Depress the receiver rest for a few seconds, then let go. The person on the other end might have answered while you were doing this, let's just hope they didnd't hang up ..... anyway, you're now ready to talk. BUT every few minutes the phone will go 'dead' for a few seconds ..... it won't cut you off though.

HOW IT WORKS

When a phone is on the hook it has a high resistance to DC and so hardly any current flows through it. (but it has a low resistance to AC because AC is what makes the bell ring.) When it is lifted, it has quite a low resistance, actually about 600 ohms. The 470 ohm resistor connected across the line fools the exchange into thinking the handset was up the whole time. It has to be disconnected for dialling, because pulse dialling (which is the only sort that works from payphones) works by opening and closing the circuit to stop and start the flow of current, so if the resistor was connected there the current would never stop flowing, and no dialling pulses would be sent. When you connect the resistor, the exchange just thinks there are 2 phones on the line, it can handle up to 4 so it's no problem. Then you hang up the payphone, now the exchange thinks there is just one phone; when you lift the receiver again, the payphone is sitting across a line with something already happening, so it just lets you listen to this. Of course, after a while it decides it's had enough of that, and tries to cut you off. But it doesn't manage it, because the resistor is keeping the line in use. The phone may be able to ring the exchange and report the "fault" but it can't even do that until after you have disconnected the resistor and made a getaway .....

ALTERNATIVE USE

If you also have a beige box, and access to an enemy's phone wiring outside the house (eg. the wires from a telegraph pole) you might like to try this use for the violet box ..... this can SERIOUSLY do people over ..... beige box from their line to anything, but the more expensive and embarrassing the service, the better ..... Australian kinky sex lines? the mind boggles ..... anyway, stick the violet box on, disconnect the beige box and run like hell.

disclaimer: this is for informational purposes only. no responsibility is accepted for any consequences of use or misuse of any information contained herein. any material whose source i have not acknowledged is believed to be my own - if it sounds like something you invented, just remember great minds think alike.