An electronics technician takes apart a Nielsen Portable People Meter ratings measurement device to show what's inside:
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Nielsen PPM electronics teardown video
- Thread starter kevtronics
- Start date
Update: He called Nielsen to report the lost and found PPM and they sent a courier to pick it up.
Wonder how long it will be before he receives a cease and desist letter from the Nielsen lawyers?
There is nothing proprietary revealed; the guy even taped over the labels and serial numbers out of caution.
Years ago, they gave me both an original meter and a newer version which had been disabled (blank SIM card) so I could show them at a Univision management meeting. I still have them, but never dissected them.
I wonder how many people carrying those things get ridiculed for still having (what look like) beepers....
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Probably no more than someone who still has a rotary-dial telephone.
Yeah, when I carry around my rotary-dial phone people stare. But since "these kids today" don't even know how to operate the dial, they think it's ancient medical equipment, so they don't point or laugh. At least, not any more than they point and laugh at my whicker wheel chair and iron lung.
I kind of miss the days when having a beeper on my belt got me full access to anywhere and anything I wanted at the hospital.
You're about 35 years too late to complain about "kids these days" not knowing how to dial a rotary telephone. One day in elementary school in the 1980s I had to call home, and I had to ask the principal's secretary to do it because they only had a rotary phone in the office and I didn't know how to dial it.
Dude... I was born in the mid 80s (just before divestiture) and even as a kid I knew how to work a rotary fone. Of course growing up around them helped, since my grandmum had (still has) a vintage yellow mid-1970s Western Electric 554 on the wall in the kitchen. So there's that....
There were actually still a lot of rotary telephones around this part of what used to be 206 during the 80s and into the 90s. Today's Orchards, WA 5ESS (ORCHWA01DS0) opened in the early 1960s initially as either a #1 or 5 crossbar, then was converted to 1AESS months before divestiture. So even though my CO has had some flavour of ESS in place for the better part of almost 40 years, early in its run quite a lot of the outside plant reflected its heritage as a mechanical office. That 1A was the switch I used to phreak off of as a kid/teenager, though I'd never admit it publicly on a bulletin board, so I won't even though I just did.
There were actually still a lot of rotary telephones around this part of what used to be 206 during the 80s and into the 90s. Today's Orchards, WA 5ESS (ORCHWA01DS0) opened in the early 1960s initially as either a #1 or 5 crossbar, then was converted to 1AESS months before divestiture. So even though my CO has had some flavour of ESS in place for the better part of almost 40 years, early in its run quite a lot of the outside plant reflected its heritage as a mechanical office. That 1A was the switch I used to phreak off of as a kid/teenager, though I'd never admit it publicly on a bulletin board, so I won't even though I just did.
Step or crossbar without DTMF converters?
Your folks' manual party-line fone could probably still be used as an extension today, depending if it's meant for common-battery or magneto/customer-battery service. The latter case, it can be set up for modern private dial lines by bypassing the magneto. The ringer's wiring should also be checked before using an old party line f0n3 (at least, if you want it to ring), since some are wired tip-to-sleeve and modern telephone service is almost always wired tip-to-ring.
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