Underground Anarchy                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                 An Extensive Guide to Bell System Man Holes                         (c) 1992 Vonnegut [PHLiGHT]                         First Edit : May 25th, 1992*****************************************************************************Underground telephone networking done by Bell is fascinating stuff and fairlyeasy to gain access to.  If you know what you're doing, you can accomplishalot, learn alot, and take home some stuff to play with.*****************************************************************************Getting Underground~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~First, you will need to find one of those Bell manholes.  They are VERY heavyand say "Bell System" on them.  In the country, they are harder to find thanin cities and suburbs.  Look on the paved main roads and you will probablyfind some.  They have a little square hole in the middle which is how youwill getting inside.  Stick the hook side of a crowbar in the hole and pushdown.  When the lid lifts, grab it and roll it onto the street or sidewalk.It is best to do this at night because it is obviously *very* easy to getcaught doing this.  Before you stick your feet in, look for the ladder rungs!The drop is 6-10 feet if you fall, and it can get very damp and slippery downthere!  If you're new at this, leave the lid half-open (never completely!)and also bring a friend: if one of you gets hurt, they can always run homeand get help.  Also, bring a flash light so you can see what the hell you'redoing until you find the light.  If you can get one of those mining helmetswith the light on it, use it.What You Should See~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~There will be a small room at the bottom which sometimes has tunnels.  Therewill be all kinds of telephone equipment down there, and sometimes even acomputer which is connected to a humungous network.  There will also bepipes on the walls that have cables running through them.  Each one will saywhat's going through it, or be color coded.  There is often a chart on thewall.Dull Green Boxes: Opening~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~These things are called bridging heads and each one has as many as 1200 cablepairs inside!  There are many different varieties of these with differentlevels of function in the network, but most are made by Western Electric orGTE, and these are the ones I will be discussing.  The larger WesternElectric ones with the WE logo on the bottom feed the whole area.  The normalbridging heads, which are smaller and often made by GTE, are usually bridgingfor homes and individual buildings.These things are tons of fun to play with.  If it's locked, stick your crow-bar in the slot above the top hinge on the right door.  If you pull nice andhard, the door will rip right off.  If it isn't locked, take a 7/16th inchhex socket and turn the bolt s-l-o-w-l-y to the left until you hear like alittle pop.  Hold onto the bolt and turn the handle all the way top the rightand pull it out (toward you).Bridging Heads: Getting Behind the Panel~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Once you've opened a bridging head, look around for the test set.  This islike the handset to your phone, except it doesn't have a phone attached toit.  You will see a whole panel of shit (all of the little cable pairs andlots of little metal screws) which you should push back about an inch.  Thenrotate the latch on the top (which is round with a little shaved-off flatsection) downward.  Then let go of the panel and it will fall forward.  Ifyou didn't see a test set before, there is probably more than one here!There will also be lots of extra wire and metal screws (like the ones on thepanel).What to Take from the Bridging Head~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Here is what to take from inside the bridging head.  Some of it will beneeded later, and some of it is just good to have around.