[PRCo] Re: SLPS/SHRT/PTC/MUNI PCC Question

[Herb Brannon]

The PRCo original "radio phone" did not use radio waves to transmit the
audio directly to the car. It was a telephone based device using the trolley
wire to transmit. Hence the name "radio phone". That is the basic definition
of the PRCo system from former PRCo/PATransit Training Instructor Angelo
Nazzo. He always referred to it as the "trolley phone". Angelo would always
tell us how superior the PATransit standard radio system was in comparison
to the "trolley phone". The main complaint with the trolley phone was that
the voice clarity was very poor. PATransit kept insisting, for years after
radios had been installed in buses, that it would not be prudent to install
them in streetcars do to the poor quality experienced in the original
installation. PAT was forgetting that there was a vast difference between
the original PRCo radio installation of 1949 and the radio system in use at
PATransit in 1971. By 1977 all streetcars, with the exception of a handful
of non-rehabilitated 1600s, had radios installed.
On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 21:24, Phillip Clark Campbell <pcc_sr at yahoo.com>wrote:

> Mr.Brannon;
> It has the appearance of an 'antenna' doesn't it.  Prc used radio
> phones on some of the interurbans but don't remember an antenna.
> Seems the radio signal was overlaid on existing wiring.
> The item you describe appears to be about 6' long and generally
> assumes the curvature of the roof.  Much smaller similar devices
> were used for antennas on cars decades later;  didn't Pat have
> a U-shaped antenna mounted near the roof light?
>
>
>  Phil
> Without  a   'coast'   but  not  a   'cause.'
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Herb Brannon <hrbran at cavtel.net>
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Sent: Thu, November 18, 2010 8:58:50 PM
> Subject: [PRCo] SLPS/SHRT/PTC/MUNI PCC Question
>
> For those who have a copy of PCC-From Coast to Coast handy. Take a look at
> the section on St Louis Public Service Co.and the 1600s and 1700s in
> particular. The SLPS 1600-series and 1700-series PCCs have a small device
> mounted on the roof just back from the top of the destination sign. It
> appears to have a bracket in the center and is made from a tube shaped
> piece
> of metal, attached to the bracket and extending to both the right and left
> sides of the car roof. I can find no mention of this device in any of my
> books. When SLPS sold their cars to Shaker Heights Rapid Transit,
> Philadelphia Transportation Co and the San Francisco Municipal Railway the
> device was missing when the cars arrived in their new homes. Does anyone
> know the purpose of this device?
> --
> Herb Brannon
> In Cuyahoga Valley National Park
>
>
>
>
>
>


-- 
Herb Brannon
In Cuyahoga Valley National Park