No electricity but the phones still working - Gotham (2014) Discussion

[–] dizzylou818 8 years ago

It is always a good idea to have landline phone service with a corded phone. They do not require electricity and will work during a power outage. Guess that's why a lot of us old folk still have them.

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[–] TheOnlyVindicator 8 years ago

Yes. That's why when you work on your inside telephone wiring, you should leave the phone off the hook cause if someone calls you, you will get zapped. On some cable systems they use the power source on the telephone lines to charge your battery to keep the digital stuff working.

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[–] lockon_stratos 8 years ago

Yes you missed something, you missed two, one is you're a millenials who don't know what landline phones are and that they don't require electricity. And two is this show doesn't use high tech devices like flat screen TVs, smart phones or computers. They adopt an an old style version even if it's a modern world. Similar to the animated series. The most they have on this show is a simple cell phones from 10-15 years ago.

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[–] travise1986 8 years ago

I grew up with a landline and didn't know they could work without electricity.

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[–] Steefnesss 8 years ago

It's possible the phones you had required power to use. Even back in the 90's you'd get a lot of cordless phones that required power, but many of the older designs didn't require power at all, but they started getting fewer and further between after the turn of the century.

Take your flunky and dangle.

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[–] atg_commish 8 years ago

Landline phones run on electricity too, but it is transmitted on the wires when needed. Presumably the phone company would be out of power too in a widespread outage, but they generally had battery backup for 8 to 24 hours. It doesn't last forever.

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[–] chrisjdel 8 years ago

Phones (even the old style rotary dial ones) require power. That bundle of wires inside the phone line includes one for low voltage DC, which is provided by the phone company independent of the main power grid. The system could be maintained almost indefinitely in the face of, say, a large scale EMP attack. Older than dirt phones would suddenly become valuable commodities.

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[–] ihaveshair 8 years ago

The whole boardwalk circus is all lit up as well? Maybe I missed something too, but all the rides seemed to have lights and energy. I did enjoy this episode. The circus scenes were disturbing and effective.

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[–] pizzabagel 8 years ago

My guess is that the circus was powered with portable generators.

They were pretty rough, but they had something.
What was it?
I think it was the trousers.

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[–] btwash11 8 years ago

Traveling fairs/circuses run on generators.

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[–] socluded 8 years ago

Pre digital telephones run on 50 volt dc power. Exchanges were backed up with batteries or emergencie generators in the case of a power failure. House phones are powered from the exchange so the phone network still works in the case of a power failure.

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[–] UncleRob 8 years ago

All electronic devices require power, including land-line phones. The power they require is/was low-voltage DC that was provided through the phone lines by the phone company.

However, if the phone company lost power and didn't have backup generators, then the land-line phones wouldn't work. So, I'm guessing the phone company had generators.

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[–] TheOnlyVindicator 8 years ago

There's a way to use that energy. A cell phone charger is 5 volts, it may be enough to keep a cell phone charged. I don't know what kind of transformer it would take, but it should be possible.

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[–] Hmmwhatshisface 8 years ago

I think some landline phones use a different power grid. During the Northeast blackout of 2003 in North America, the phones were still operational.

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[–] krypton_son 8 years ago

Well, corded landline phones don't require electricity. So, yeah, that's pretty realistic.

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dies ist meine unterschrift

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[–] whumpy224 8 years ago

The OP missed science class.

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[–] krypton_son 8 years ago

Lol, apparently.

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dies ist meine unterschrift

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[–] TheOnlyVindicator 8 years ago

Probably young too. I know a lot of people that don't have landlines.

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[–] UncleRob 8 years ago

There are a lot of people who don't know what a landline IS lol!

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You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU ... WILL ... ATONE!

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[–] TurnerJazz 8 years ago

LOL millennials...

Landlines work without electricity. That's how people called could still communicate without power back before smartphones in the ancient times...

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