On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:40:41 -0700 (PDT), philsvintageradios
wrote:

On Aug 10, 8:45*am, wrote:
I just got an old rotary phone from an antique store - the original
cord is attached - I want to hook it up and use it in my home - what
do I do??


I have one of these old dial phones. I can answer it , and call out
but the bell won't ring.
I was told it was a "party line phone" and therefore it requires a
different frequency to ring.
If this is true, is there a way to modify it so it can ring?

I don't think frequency has anything to do with it. Well, it may have
to do with how the phone rings, but not if it rings.

Is this made by Western Electic? If that's not the name, does it have
a metal box inside with a plastic top with lots of screws with wires
under them.

I'm in the US so just maybe there is some reason there is a
difference, but Bud is right. There are two wires from the bell, and
it's likely that one of the two goes to the same screw that the green
or red goes to (one of the wires in the cord to the wall.) That's
fine. But the other wire from the bell probalby doesn't go to the
remaining green or red. Espeically if it had been used on a party
line. So note where that other wire is and move it to the green/red
that the first wire isn't connected to.

But bear in mind: There was a limit to how many phones with bells one
could use in those days, something like 4. When different kinds of
noise makers were used in phones, they assigned a Ringer Equivalence
Number of 1 to the original mechanical bells. Everything else is lower
than 1, maybe 0.2 or 0.3. Add up all the bells in your house and if
they exeeeded 4, the phones wouldn't ring (even though everything else
usually worked) So people with a lot of extensions would disconnect
one of the bells inside the phone to make sure the phones still rang,
or they would do it so that phone didn't make any noise. So maybe
the wire (often with a two-tined fork on the end of it) is just
sitting in space, connected to nothing.

AFAIK the maximum sum of all the RENs is still 4, but maybe they
lowered it some places because there are so few real bells out there.
Remember this if all your phones stop ringing one day!

I am in canada and it is a very common design , your standard black
desk phone, these were the ones they phone company (bc tel) provided,
unless you paid extra to get some other fancy color or design

Phil