GB1193423A - Improvements in or relating to Telephone Answering Machines - Google Patents

Abstract

1,193,423. Telephone answering machines. L. RUBENSTEIN. 13 Sept., 1967 [13 June, 1966], No. 26228/66. Addition to 1,193,081. Heading H4K. [Also in Divisions G5 and H1] In a telephone answering machine of the type described in Specification 1,193,081 in which a number of answering announcements are recorded on a magnetic tape spaced by intervals to allow incoming messages to be recorded, with the recording and playback connections being made by a switching device coupled to the recorder take up spool, the coupling between the take up spool and the switching device is via a stepping switch driving the switching device and driven by pulses generated by contacts which are closed periodically at predetermined points in the take up spool rotation. Fig. 4, shows a drive circuit in which motor 100 is energized from supply 45 via switches 28, 30, or 43, closed during the time the answering machine is required to be in operation. Contacts 92 and 94 are bridged by conductive strips on an insulating substrate which is rotated with the tape recorder take-up spool, so as to complete the motor 100 supply circuit four times in a revolution of the take up spool. Each time contacts 92 and 94 are bridged motor 100 rotates, causing non-shorting contact 112 to make to one of the spaced contacts, e.g. 118, on disc 114 which maintains the supply to motor 100, even though the contacts 92 and 94 are no longer bridged, until the contact 112 lies between the next pair of contacts, e.g. 118 and 120, on the disc 114. The motor, as well as driving contact 112 via shaft 108, drives the tape recorder function change-over switch via shaft 91, the change-over switch being as described in the parent Specification. In an alternative arrangement, Fig. 5, bridging of the contacts 92 and 94 in response to the take up reel 3, rotation supplies current to the heater coil 164 of a thermally responsive strip 150 through normally closed contacts 160, 162. Heating of the strip causes operation of a ratchet drive device to rotate wheel 136 which is coupled to the function change-over switch shaft. Movement of the ratchet wheel opens contacts 92, 94 to allow the strip 50 to cool whereby initial conditions are restored ready for a further operation when contacts 92 and 94 are again bridged.