RING TRIP APPARATUS FOR A LINE CIRCUIT CONNECTED TO DCO SWITCH

A ring trip circuit adapted for use in a community office switching system that includes a call control processor and a port event processor. The call control processor and port event processor interact through a port storage unit that contains information corresponding to each telephone line connected to the switching system. The switching system also includes a ringing generator for transmitting ringing signals onto a telephone line to a called party. Windings for a common bridge relay connect in circuit with each telephone line and diodes shunt the windings so the relay responds only to signals of one polarity. The contacts of the common bridge relay, therefore, reflect the duty cycle of the signal through the common bridge relay and this duty cycle varies when the called party goes off-hook during a ringing burst. The common bridge relay produces a supervisory signal that is sampled and transferred, for each telephone line, to a corresponding port storage area. A single ring trip analyzer sequentially monitors each port storage means during a ringing operating to determine whether the supervisory signal indicates that the called instrument has been taken off-hook. When this occurs, the analyzer updates control information in a corresponding port storage area to control the state of a ring delay. The ring delay then opens and removes the ringing signal from the corresponding telephone line. The analyzer also detects off-hook status during intervals between successive ringing bursts and during normal operations when a subscriber lifts a telephone off-hook in order to place a call.