When I was on active duty in 1974, ringer voltage was
90 volts... And the earlier comment about not touching the terminals during ringing is very sage advice.
Once on a rifle range at Fort Gordon Georgia, the Major in charge of the range operations sent me down range with a team to pull targets with the instructions to take the phone and attach the wires and wait for his "ring"...
Well we went down range, and set up the phone and prepared all the targets and waited and waited and the phone never rang... So I cranked it to find out what was the delay since it was the only communications we had, and it wouldn't be safe to head back up range to the firing points without notifying the range officer. There was no answer to my ring. I waited 5 more minutes and then cranked it again. Still no answer. I waited ten more minutes and cranked it a good one. After about two minutes my phone finally rang.
The Major was on the other end and told me we were to raise targets... and then he said, "the next time I tell you to wait for my ring, you WILL wait for my ring."
I replied "yes SIR."
Later than afternoon, one of the other NCO's came down range during a break and had a hard time telling me what had happened without laughing. An NCO asked the Major if he wanted his phone wired in, and the Major said no, he was capable of doing it himself. Then the Major got involved talking and not only delayed training but forgot to wire up his phone. When he reached for the WD-1 field wire (one wire in each hand) is when I cranked the phone the first time. The jolt had knocked him down cursing. Five minutes later he got the nerve to try it again, and of course, that was my second attempt to ring his phone. The voltage bit him again!. So now just to show how smart he was, he waited 10 minutes to try and wire the phone again. You guessed it. That was when I really cranked the phone to find out why we were delayed. This time the voltage cause his fingers to pinch the wires and he couldn't let go... my cranking made him drop to his knees. He finally asked the other NCO to wire the phone, and of course nothing happened until he finally called me. I bet I laughed for several hours after that. The Major was not one of my favorite people... he was frequently intoxicated, but of course still in charge of the Marksmanship Unit. He was found drunk on duty and relieved about two weeks later...
I hope that true story made some of you ex-grunts, especially the signal corps types laugh out loud!
