Help finding information on ANCIENT phone system

[acejavelin]

This isn't for a customer or any actual project... just to verify my sanity and I cannot find any information in the internet in searching. The actual location has since upgraded to a Mitel SX50 and then was closed and the building demolished.

Years ago, probably early to mid 1990's, I was called out to a down system at a small motel in a rural town, not our customer but they couldn't find anyone to service them and they agreed to the charges so I went out.

The phone system they had was an old automatic branch exchange, I am guessing from the 1960's, with rows and rows of exposed contacts in a refrigerator size cabinet. The maintenance guy there said when they phone noise in the past, he would take this wire brush and scrub the contacts to clear up the noise. The system was called a Like, Leik, Liek, or something similar to that (I don't even know how to spell it, sorry, and that is probably the problem).

I am looking for the name and possible model numbers of this system, and any links to info or pictures of the system. If anyone has any information they might be able to offer I would appreciate it.

This is not really important, just one of those discussions on a slow shop day of "how old of a system have you actually worked on" kind of things.

[Tech Electronics]

acejavelin,

The company was called the Leich Electric Company based out of Genoa, IL. and they had several versions of electromechanical PBXs until they went out of business.

Thanks,

TE

[acejavelin]

acejavelin,

The company was called the Leich Electric Company based out of Genoa, IL. and they had several versions of electromechanical PBXs until they went out of business.

Thanks,

TE

That is it! Gets me started down the right path, thanks.

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

[Kissinka]

I just found this forum and this question.  Just HAD to add my limited information to it.

In the late 1970's I worked for GTE Automatic Electric - a small office in Detroit working as an interconnect in 'Bell' Territory. I think this was GTE's experiment to see if they wanted to get into this business. I supported a limited number of the Leich 40 and 80 switches. These had been installed a few years before, but the company had already moved on to the newer GTD 120 PBX (600 pounds and half the size of a refrigerator) and 17A key systems for new installations. We finally got electronic key systems in 1982.

So my memories of this system are 40+ years old and not very clear.  (BTW, I am still active in telecom, selling VoIP and digital systems.)

The Leich 40 was about 5 1/2 feet tall, and 3 to 4 feet wide. Inside was a series of vertical 'station', 'trunk' or 'register' bars. The bars were removable (with difficulty) and had rows of reed relays on them.  Each reed relay had 4 to 20 contacts. The 80 was wider and had space for more of these bars.  I think the 40 had a maximum of 32 extensions and the 80 was 64 or 72. 8 per bar.

When you went off hook a station bar would do a sequence of relay connections to give you dial tone and connect you to a receiver bar. That receiver bar would count the pulses from your rotary-dial phone (No DTMF) and another sequence of relays would connect you either to a trunk bar and a phone line, or to a different station bar. That station bar's relay sequence would select the destination, apply ringing and make the connection when they went off hook. Each of these relay sequences lasted 1-2 seconds and involved very specific chains of relays and contacts depending on the required task.

Troubleshooting involved slowly and methodically tracing the sequence of connections across the relays with live test calls until you found the one that was sticking or not passing along a signal. Then I would use a clean $1 bill as a burnisher to wipe the carbon out of the relay contacts.  Then test again and go on to the next sticking relay. A service call to one of these was usually at least half of a day.