Drum selector
The drum selector is a telephone developed by Siemens & Halske in the 1950s that has a train number switch in the shape of a drum. Siemens colloquially called drum voters was Fg tist 261 and Fg tist 264, as F ernsprech g et up instrument Ti sch st ation referred.
functionality
Instead of a dial, telephones with a drum dial have a cylinder that can be rotated around a horizontal axis. The drum has ten indentations corresponding to the ten digits; the user puts a finger into a recess and turns the cylinder downwards until the stop is reached. After letting go, the cylinder ran back again.
marketing
Because the Deutsche Bundespost did not include the drum voter in its range; Participants could only purchase these devices privately. Phones with a drum dial were sold exclusively for connection to private branch exchanges.
The drum voters were not economically successful. They were therefore replaced after a few years by the successor model Fg tist 282 .
Differences between the drum selector and the conventional number switch
In principle, the drum selector is based on a number switch 38 with an additional gear, since the digits are arranged on an arc of about 90 ° instead of the conventional 270 °. The leaf spring for winding is bigger and stronger. There are also differences in the contact block. The drum is made of thermoplastic .
service
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Compared to the rotary dial, operation was simplified in that the user had to perform a quasi linear movement for each digit with his finger instead of the comparatively laborious circular movement of a rotary dial.
To make the depressions larger, the depressions were arranged in two rows: even numbers on the right, odd numbers on the left. However, it turned out to be disadvantageous that the angle of the finger to the dial drum changed when dialing; as a result, the drum selector often resulted in broken fingernails. The end point was also less precisely defined than with a rotary dial; Bad connections were more common among inexperienced users. As a result, Siemens stopped producing the device in 1955.
Colours
The so-called drum voter was available in the standard colors black and ivory (Fg tist 261) as well as in light green or dark green, in cherry red or light red (Fg tist 264).
