bellutta@irst.it (Paolo Bellutta) (01/22/91)
Nine years ago I had to be in the army for twelve months (in Italy it is compulsory). While in the army my duty was to answer the phone at the PBX of a medium size command center some 40 km from the northern border of Italy. The PBX (sorry don't know the model but I think it was GTE or similar) was electromechanical with relays on some boards for the switching. No tone dialling, 100 derivations (two digit numbers) of which two had priviledged call for the pbx operators (there were two operators working simultaneously). At the pbx were connected some twenty "military" lines plus two "civil" lines. The "military" lines were in fact 20 VHF (FM 170 Mhz) bidirectional links. The radio link was a box 50x50 cm and 20 cm deep with a wire as aerial. No scrambling. The "civil" lines were SIP (the Italian telco) public lines (with number published on the phone directory). Some of the "military" lines were in fact point to point lines supplied (and maintained) by SIP. Telex (110 baud!!) were on SIP point to point lines, again, unscrambled. The quality of the radio link was from good to barely understandable. Noise immunity was 0. In fact during storms they were useless. On site telecom is still provided by old phones like in world war II but in some cases radio is bridged on telephone lines (and vice-versa). Nobody told be at that time not to disclose any information (besides from the SIP unlisted numbers of the munition deposits), anyway I didn't say very much.