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??

Disney,

Check with your phone company to be sure that your local exchange can
process rotary information or make a converter to take the rotary signals
(pulses) and convert them to tone dialing. My local exchange still accepts
pulse dialing but many businesses use voice mail systems that aren't
compatible with pulse dialing.

Dave M.

On Aug 10, 1:45*pm, 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??

It may work just as is. Certainly likely to be able to answer an
incoming call; o if it is in working condition at all.

Many telephone lines, at least those from regular 'line' telcos. Will
still accept the pulses from the rotary dial.

We have such a dial equipped phone in our hallway and it works just
fine, although we tend to use a cordless phone because of ease of use
and ease of pushing buttons and redialling etc.

But when there is the occasional power outage with traditional
telephone systems, often equipped with 24 hour battery back-up,
nothing works better than a plain old fashioned rotary phone.

If you want to test it before hooking up connect a 9 volt battery to
the two wires (often red and green) to see if you hear a click in the
earpiece, also try blowing or talking into the microphone part and see
if you hear something; it's called side-tone (i.e. you should be able
to hear yourself slightly. (Side tone sometimes is called 'Spitch') if
so the phone may work.

However depending on the original quality of the phone (Bell system
standard/Western Elctric/ AE Co. Chicago, for example , whether it is
in good condition and its model you may or may not get good quality
voice transmission, both ways. Although judging by some of the cheap
junk phones that have been sold and in some cases given away an older
standard rotary phone that meets international standards may be
better! I have pre-1950s phones that work just fine.

wrote in message
...
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??

To test if it works, remove cover from wall jack, touch red and green wires
from phone to same colors on jack. Listen for dial tone. If you get one, so
far so good.

Next screw the red and green wires from the phone to the jack and test for
outgoing and incoming phone calls. If it works, you can just leave it that
way-- or attach an RJ11 plug to the phone so you can use it an any jack.

In article ,
"Special Ed" martin@kallikak wrote:

wrote in message
...
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??

To test if it works, remove cover from wall jack, touch red and green wires
from phone to same colors on jack. Listen for dial tone. If you get one, so
far so good.

Next screw the red and green wires from the phone to the jack and test for
outgoing and incoming phone calls. If it works, you can just leave it that
way-- or attach an RJ11 plug to the phone so you can use it an any jack.

Would you be able to use it for outgoing calls or just incoming?

On Aug 10, 2:25*pm, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
*"Special Ed" martin@kallikak wrote:

wrote in message
....
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??

To test if it works, remove cover from wall jack, touch red and green wires
from phone to same colors on jack. Listen for dial tone. If you get one, so
far so good.

Next screw the red and green wires from the phone to the jack and test for
outgoing and incoming phone calls. If it works, you can just leave it that
way-- or attach an RJ11 plug to the phone so you can use it an any jack..

* Would you be able to use it for outgoing calls or just incoming?

David makes good point ............. while you may able to dial local
and long distance numbers, many/most voice-mail and automated
answering and directory systems cannot respond to dial pulses once you
have connected through the phone system to them. Many still say "Press
X for such and such .... . Or stay on the line to be answered
(Hopefully by a real live human being!!!!!).

BTW: Have seen one or two phone oddities from time to time. There was
one European phone that had 12 rotary dial numbers on it. Also the
standard speed of the dial pulses in North America and the UK used to
be/is ten pulses per second. So it takes one second to dial zero! Old
style rotary dial payphones outside sometimes used get pretty slow in
cold weather and below about eight pulse per second the telephone
equipment in the nice warm telephone building would misdial and one
could get wrong numbers. And lose the money inserted! So sometimes one
needed to push the dial back round to get enough speed.

Also the ratio of make/break of the dial pulses was slightly different
in different countries. Recalling in the UK each pulse around 66%
break, 34% make. In North America it was IIRC closer to 70% break etc.

So if this is some unusual manufacture of phone from say
Chechloslovakia, or some made up abomination of a 'fake vintage' phone
made in Taiwan or somewhere, expect anything in way of performance on
a standard North American telephone connection! Which is, btw, why, at
one time, Bell System and other companies discouraged the installation/
connection of 'other' phones to their lines; too many problems and
trouble calls!

Oh. BTW don't think a rotary dial phone will work on any of the VOIP
(internet connected) services such as Skype!!!!!!

terry wrote:
On Aug 10, 1:45 pm, 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??

It may work just as is. Certainly likely to be able to answer an
incoming call; o if it is in working condition at all.

Many telephone lines, at least those from regular 'line' telcos. Will
still accept the pulses from the rotary dial.

We have such a dial equipped phone in our hallway and it works just
fine, although we tend to use a cordless phone because of ease of use
and ease of pushing buttons and redialling etc.

But when there is the occasional power outage with traditional
telephone systems, often equipped with 24 hour battery back-up,
nothing works better than a plain old fashioned rotary phone.

I don't understand why a rotary phone would be better. Touch tone phones
are also powered by the loop so if the loop happens to be on battery the
touch tone phone will still work just as well as a rotary phone.



If you want to test it before hooking up connect a 9 volt battery to
the two wires (often red and green) to see if you hear a click in the
earpiece, also try blowing or talking into the microphone part and see
if you hear something; it's called side-tone (i.e. you should be able
to hear yourself slightly. (Side tone sometimes is called 'Spitch') if
so the phone may work.

However depending on the original quality of the phone (Bell system
standard/Western Elctric/ AE Co. Chicago, for example , whether it is
in good condition and its model you may or may not get good quality
voice transmission, both ways. Although judging by some of the cheap
junk phones that have been sold and in some cases given away an older
standard rotary phone that meets international standards may be
better! I have pre-1950s phones that work just fine.

"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Special Ed" martin@kallikak wrote:

wrote in message
...
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??

To test if it works, remove cover from wall jack, touch red and green
wires
from phone to same colors on jack. Listen for dial tone. If you get one,
so
far so good.

Next screw the red and green wires from the phone to the jack and test
for
outgoing and incoming phone calls. If it works, you can just leave it
that
way-- or attach an RJ11 plug to the phone so you can use it an any jack.

Would you be able to use it for outgoing calls or just incoming?

Both if it's working properly-- though as others have pointed out, there is
no touch tone capability so you couldn't Press One For English..... Way
back when, Radio Shack used to sell a pocket sized touch-tone generator-- or
maybe hold the speaker of your cellie up to the mouthpiece of the old phone
and enter them that way.

wrote in message
...
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??

Call the phone company. Phones with cords requires special expertise by
trained technicians from the phone company. Only they know the proper wires
to hook up to in the box. They can come out on Thursday between 2:00 and
4:00.

On Sun, 10 Aug 2008 08:45:10 -0700 (PDT),
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 think the odds are more than 1/2 that it will work fine. Just conect
one of the two wires from the phone to the red wire on the wall and
the other to the green. Which is red and which is green don't
matter with dial phones, but if they do have colors, you might want to
attach red to red and green to green.

This is most easy if you have a box mounted on the surface somewhere,
because they have covers that come off, but if all your phone jacks
are below the surface of the wall, with only the hole sticking out,
you can still take off the wall plate and make your connections there.

If your phone system no longer works with dial phones, you still won't
harm the phone system. They're designed to handle even long short
circuits, much longer than the split-second pulse-shorts that rotary
phones make.

I haven't tested this for decades, but used to be, if the red and
green were shorted to each other for a long time, 50 seconds in a
row?, the line would go almost dead (no dial tone but maybe some
background noise) and I had to wait for about 10 minutes before the
dial tone came back. No big deal.

I have a dial phone in my basement, probably not as old or pretty as
yours, and it works fine.

"mm" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 10 Aug 2008 08:45:10 -0700 (PDT),
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 think the odds are more than 1/2 that it will work fine. Just conect
one of the two wires from the phone to the red wire on the wall and
the other to the green. Which is red and which is green don't
matter with dial phones, but if they do have colors, you might want to
attach red to red and green to green.

This is most easy if you have a box mounted on the surface somewhere,
because they have covers that come off, but if all your phone jacks
are below the surface of the wall, with only the hole sticking out,
you can still take off the wall plate and make your connections there.

If your phone system no longer works with dial phones, you still won't
harm the phone system. They're designed to handle even long short
circuits, much longer than the split-second pulse-shorts that rotary
phones make.

I haven't tested this for decades, but used to be, if the red and
green were shorted to each other for a long time, 50 seconds in a
row?, the line would go almost dead (no dial tone but maybe some
background noise) and I had to wait for about 10 minutes before the
dial tone came back. No big deal.

I have a dial phone in my basement, probably not as old or pretty as
yours, and it works fine.

I believe that the old rotary phones were 3 wire, not two. It's been a long
time, but I think it was red/green/yellow (or was it red/green/black) They
connected to the matched red and green on the jack with the third color
attached to the red (again, I think). The third wire was necessary to power
the bell (yes, those phones had mechanical bells).
--
Peace,
BobJ

Marilyn & Bob wrote:
"mm" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 10 Aug 2008 08:45:10 -0700 (PDT),
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 think the odds are more than 1/2 that it will work fine. Just
conect one of the two wires from the phone to the red wire on the
wall and the other to the green. Which is red and which is
green
don't matter with dial phones, but if they do have colors, you
might
want to attach red to red and green to green.

This is most easy if you have a box mounted on the surface
somewhere,
because they have covers that come off, but if all your phone
jacks
are below the surface of the wall, with only the hole sticking out,
you can still take off the wall plate and make your connections
there.

If your phone system no longer works with dial phones, you still
won't harm the phone system. They're designed to handle even long
short circuits, much longer than the split-second pulse-shorts that
rotary phones make.

I haven't tested this for decades, but used to be, if the red and
green were shorted to each other for a long time, 50 seconds in a
row?, the line would go almost dead (no dial tone but maybe some
background noise) and I had to wait for about 10 minutes before the
dial tone came back. No big deal.

I have a dial phone in my basement, probably not as old or pretty
as
yours, and it works fine.

I believe that the old rotary phones were 3 wire, not two. It's
been
a long time, but I think it was red/green/yellow (or was it
red/green/black) They connected to the matched red and green on the
jack with the third color attached to the red (again, I think). The
third wire was necessary to power the bell (yes, those phones had
mechanical bells).

Ring voltage comes in on the talk pair. If you're holding it when a
ring comes through you can get quite a surprise.

Standard pairings are red-green for line 1 and yellow-black for line
2. Been that way as long as I can remember, in the US anyway.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Plug it in, it should work. The system is backward compatible in most
areas.

s

wrote in message
...
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??

On Sun, 10 Aug 2008 18:19:49 -0400, "Marilyn & Bob"
wrote:



I believe that the old rotary phones were 3 wire, not two. It's been a long
time, but I think it was red/green/yellow (or was it red/green/black) They
connected to the matched red and green on the jack with the third color
attached to the red (again, I think). The third wire was necessary to power
the bell (yes, those phones had mechanical bells).
--
Peace,
BobJ

I don't know all phones from all years, and there may well be 3 wire
phones, but there are certainly plenty of two wire dial phones**. The
cord may have 4 wires but in that case only the red and green are for
talking. . Princess phones used the other two wires for a light, but I
don't think he has a princess.

My oldest phone would go in the living room if I had a jack there.
It's probably older than I am, 61, but has only two wires.

Its bottom is like half a grapefruit face down, but black with a dial
on the front, and a four pronged almost bakelite cradle above it that
holds the handset maybe two inches higher than the grapefruit. The
sillhouette of this phone is often used to indicate Ma Bell or
telephones in general.

I bought it in 1967 at Olsen's Electronics, on Western Avenue in
Chicago ,across the street from Allied Radio. They had a big 3 foot
x3x3 box full of phones for 99 cents, plus a handset from another box
for 15 cents. I bought three handsets but only one phone. I wish I'd
bought more. They must have been at least 20 years old at that time.

Just two wires.


**I remember the day I came home from school and our non-dial phones
were changed for dial phones. The desk phone in my parents' room was
changed totally, but the wall phone, which was a little rectangular
box with a hook for the handset, was still there. The repairman had
taken off the flat 2x2" top and replaced it with a top that had a
dial. I didn't take it apart, but I'm sure he spliced the dial into
one of the wires inside. ...Unless he did change the phone and the
rest lookesd so much alike that I missed it.

Steve Barker DLT wrote:

Plug it in, it should work. The system is backward compatible in most
areas.


Plug? What's that?

In article ,
wrote:

I believe that the old rotary phones were 3 wire, not two.

That was for selective ringing on a party line.

You are correct.

Just hook the green and yellow to the green
on the new jack. Red to red.

I agree.

Since there are still many, MANY rotary phones in service out there, I
am unaware of any PUBLIC switch that does not respond to dial pulses.

Also, more and more services that, in the past, required Touchtoner
(press '1' for this, '2' for that), are converting to voice response so
an old dial pulse phone is actually returning to nearly full
functionality.

What goes around, comes around...
--

JR

"Jim Redelfs" wrote in message
...
In article ,
wrote:

I believe that the old rotary phones were 3 wire, not two.

That was for selective ringing on a party line.

You are correct.

Just hook the green and yellow to the green
on the new jack. Red to red.

I agree.

Yes that is exactly what I meant. You need to connect both the green and
the yellow wires from the phone cord (thanks for the memory trigger) to the
green wire on the jack or the bell will not ring.
--
Peace,
BobJ


--
Peace,
BobJ


Since there are still many, MANY rotary phones in service out there, I
am unaware of any PUBLIC switch that does not respond to dial pulses.

Also, more and more services that, in the past, required Touchtoner
(press '1' for this, '2' for that), are converting to voice response so
an old dial pulse phone is actually returning to nearly full
functionality.

What goes around, comes around...
--

JR

On Aug 10, 11:45*pm, "Marilyn & Bob" wrote:
"Jim Redelfs" wrote in message

...

In article ,
wrote:

I believe that the old rotary phones were 3 wire, not two.

That was for selective ringing on a party line.

You are correct.

Just hook the green and yellow to the green
on the new jack. Red to red.

I agree.

Yes that is exactly what I meant. *You need to connect both the green and
the yellow wires from the phone cord (thanks for the memory trigger) to the
green wire on the jack or the bell will not ring.
--
Peace,
BobJ

--
Peace,
BobJ





Since there are still many, MANY rotary phones in service out there, I
am unaware of any PUBLIC switch that does not respond to dial pulses.

Also, more and more services that, in the past, required Touchtoner
(press '1' for this, '2' for that), are converting to voice response so
an old dial pulse phone is actually returning to nearly full
functionality.

What goes around, comes around...
--
* * * * * *
JR- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

THANK YOU TO ALL - next question I have - I got the phone connected
and it works, I've received and made calls - only thing is that the
volume I Hear is low, the other person hears me fine, but the sound I
hear is low, there appears to be maybe a volume dial on the bottom of
the phone but that doesn't help - is there anything else I could do to
increase the volume of the earpiece?

On Aug 10, 11:20*pm, wrote:
On Aug 10, 11:45*pm, "Marilyn & Bob" wrote:



"Jim Redelfs" wrote in message

...

In article ,
wrote:

I believe that the old rotary phones were 3 wire, not two.

That was for selective ringing on a party line.

You are correct.

Just hook the green and yellow to the green
on the new jack. Red to red.

I agree.

Yes that is exactly what I meant. *You need to connect both the green and
the yellow wires from the phone cord (thanks for the memory trigger) to the
green wire on the jack or the bell will not ring.
--
Peace,
BobJ

--
Peace,
BobJ

Since there are still many, MANY rotary phones in service out there, I
am unaware of any PUBLIC switch that does not respond to dial pulses.

Also, more and more services that, in the past, required Touchtoner
(press '1' for this, '2' for that), are converting to voice response so
an old dial pulse phone is actually returning to nearly full
functionality.

What goes around, comes around...
--
* * * * * *
JR- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

THANK YOU TO ALL - next question I have - I got the phone connected
and it works, I've received and made calls - only thing is that the
volume I Hear is low, the other person hears me fine, but the sound I
hear is low, there appears to be maybe a volume dial on the bottom of
the phone but that doesn't help - is there anything else I could do to
increase the volume of the earpiece?

That is indeed a volume control, but it is for the bell. The only
thing that might help is a new earpiece speaker.

Go to radio shack. They used to have adaptors from four pin to modular.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


wrote in message
...
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 havn't used a rotary phone on a line, in ages. But very likely both. No
child under 30 will know how to dial it.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
...

Would you be able to use it for outgoing calls or just incoming?

On Sun, 10 Aug 2008 18:51:09 -0500, "Steve Barker DLT"
wrote:

Plug it in, it should work. The system is backward compatible in most
areas.

s


However, those old phones required considerably more current to ring
than most new electronic phones. That may not be available.

wrote in message
...
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??

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"Never underestimate the power of stupid
people in large groups"

On Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:11:04 -0500, Steve Kraus
wrote:

Steve Barker DLT wrote:

Plug it in, it should work. The system is backward compatible in most
areas.


Plug? What's that?

One of those big 4-prong plugs? Those with a square arrangement with
about an inch between prongs. It's the first phone plug I remember
seeing.
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"Never underestimate the power of stupid
people in large groups"

On Sun, 10 Aug 2008 18:51:09 -0500, "Steve Barker DLT"
wrote:

Plug it in, it should work. The system is backward compatible in most
areas.


I wonder it it'd work with MagicJack.

s

wrote in message
...
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??

On Aug 10, 10:56*pm, wrote:
On Sun, 10 Aug 2008 18:19:49 -0400, "Marilyn & Bob"

wrote:
I believe that the old rotary phones were 3 wire, not two. *

That was for selective ringing on a party line. Just hook the green
and yellow to the green on the new jack. Red to red.

Yes and no:

In most cases and on a single party line the 'third wire' allowed the
'ringer (electromechanical bell inside phone or sometimes even
separate) to be connected, or not connected as required.

The above posting is correct that on 'some' party lines the ringing
was sent on one side of the line (with respect to ground) for, say,
one party on a two party line and other side of the line for the other
party!

There were also other other systems of ringing; including multiparty
coded ringing (two longs and short etc.) which also sometimes used one
side of the line or the other.

And ringing systems that used different frequencies of ringing; there
was on for example (Sold by AECo. Chicago), that allowed for five
different ringing frequencies, 16, 25, 33, 50 , 66 cycle/hertz etc.
and with those five frequencies on each side of the telephone line it
was possible to have up to ten parties on one line. This was usually
on long rural lines; but am familiar with one city that used to have
four parties on a line, using the different frequency ringing. That
city did not use ringing to ground (i.e. one side of the line because
of the difficulty, in that rocky and high resistivity of the soil
location, of obtaining and maintaining good ground connections! So in
that instance the four (not five) frequencies were sent on the pair of
wires, not in respect to ground.

The advantage being that only one party's phone would ring on an
incoming call; thus allowing a 'little more' privacy!

ALL OF WHICH: Leads to another comment/suggestion to the original
poster:
If you wish or have trouble getting your 'vintage' phone to ring on
incoming calls (and you wish to have it so) check that the ringer/bell
is connected either by that third lead or internally inside the phone.
Also if it is of some non North American manufacture it 'may' have
been designed to work best on some ringing frequency other than the 20
hertz most commonly used in North America; however recollection is
that the non frequency selective ringing phones are usually not that
sensitive to ringing frequency and would sometimes ring (continuously
or intermittently) when power faults came in contact with telephone
lines.

Strikes one that there must have been as many varieties of phones
around the world since Alexander Graham, a Scottish immigrant to
Canada discovered the principle of turning speech into variations of
electric current, as the many versions of radios/wireless sets in use
since the advent of radio transmission.

On Aug 11, 10:37*am, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:
I havn't used a rotary phone on a line, in ages. But very likely both. No
child under 30 will know how to dial it.

Simply untrue. I'm 22 and know about rotary phones. Hell, my cottage
*still* doesn't have touchtone dialing.

Ian

Both if it's working properly-- though as others have pointed out, there is
no touch tone capability so you couldn't Press One For English..... *Way
back when, Radio Shack used to sell a pocket sized touch-tone generator-- or
maybe hold the speaker of your cellie up to the mouthpiece of the old phone
and enter them that way

I still have one of those RS touch-tone generators. Used to use it
for phone patch operations when my 2-meter radio didn't have touch-
tone capability.

Barry - N4BUQ

On 8/10/2008 9:32 AM terry spake thus:

On Aug 10, 2:25 pm, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
"Special Ed" martin@kallikak wrote:

wrote in message
...
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??

To test if it works, remove cover from wall jack, touch red and green wires
from phone to same colors on jack. Listen for dial tone. If you get one, so
far so good.

Next screw the red and green wires from the phone to the jack and test for
outgoing and incoming phone calls. If it works, you can just leave it that
way-- or attach an RJ11 plug to the phone so you can use it an any jack.

Would you be able to use it for outgoing calls or just incoming?

David makes good point ............. while you may able to dial local
and long distance numbers, many/most voice-mail and automated
answering and directory systems cannot respond to dial pulses once you
have connected through the phone system to them. Many still say "Press
X for such and such .... . Or stay on the line to be answered
(Hopefully by a real live human being!!!!!).

I don't know for sure, but suspect that dialing "O" would get you
through to the "operator" the way it does by pressing "O" with such
systems (most are set up to reach some default number on that keypress).


--
"Wikipedia ... it reminds me ... of dogs barking idiotically through
endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it.
It drags itself out of the dark abyss of pish, and crawls insanely up
the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and
doodle. It is balder and dash."

- With apologies to H. L. Mencken

On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:19:35 -0700, David Nebenzahl
wrote:


I don't know for sure, but suspect that dialing "O" would get you
through to the "operator" the way it does by pressing "O" with such
systems (most are set up to reach some default number on that keypress).

Yes.

Also I think with enough practice, one can learn to make touch-tone
sounds with one's mouth. I think there was a guy on tv who could do
that.

OT I get few junk phone calls now, but with one, I pressed 9, and a
recording said something like, "You have been placed on our
do-not-call list".

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 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

On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:40:04 -0400, mm wrote:
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:19:35 -0700, David Nebenzahl
wrote:


I don't know for sure, but suspect that dialing "O" would get you
through to the "operator" the way it does by pressing "O" with such
systems (most are set up to reach some default number on that keypress).

Yes.

Also I think with enough practice, one can learn to make touch-tone
sounds with one's mouth. I think there was a guy on tv who could do
that.

Doubtful. You'd need to sets of vocal cords in order to generate
the two simultaneous frequencies used to DTFM (tone-tone) dialing.

On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:40:04 -0400, mm wrote:
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:19:35 -0700, David Nebenzahl
wrote:


I don't know for sure, but suspect that dialing "O" would get you
through to the "operator" the way it does by pressing "O" with such
systems (most are set up to reach some default number on that keypress).

Yes.

Also I think with enough practice, one can learn to make touch-tone
sounds with one's mouth. I think there was a guy on tv who could do
that.

OT I get few junk phone calls now, but with one, I pressed 9, and a
recording said something like, "You have been placed on our
do-not-call list".

Which is their list of confirmed phone numbers to harass next.

On 8/11/2008 12:56 PM AZ Nomad spake thus:

On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:40:04 -0400, mm wrote:
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:19:35 -0700, David Nebenzahl
wrote:

I don't know for sure, but suspect that dialing "O" would get you
through to the "operator" the way it does by pressing "O" with such
systems (most are set up to reach some default number on that keypress).

Yes.

Also I think with enough practice, one can learn to make touch-tone
sounds with one's mouth. I think there was a guy on tv who could do
that.

Doubtful. You'd need to sets of vocal cords in order to generate
the two simultaneous frequencies used to DTFM (tone-tone) dialing.

But that's just what the Tuvan throat singers do: sing two tones
simultaneously. Amazing stuff. Could probably be trained to do DTMF.


--
"Wikipedia ... it reminds me ... of dogs barking idiotically through
endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it.
It drags itself out of the dark abyss of pish, and crawls insanely up
the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and
doodle. It is balder and dash."

- With apologies to H. L. Mencken

And they actually show up Friday at 7:12 AM? I think I met that guy.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in message
...


Call the phone company. Phones with cords requires special expertise by
trained technicians from the phone company. Only they know the proper wires
to hook up to in the box. They can come out on Thursday between 2:00 and
4:00.

On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:56:40 -0500, AZ Nomad
wrote:



OT I get few junk phone calls now, but with one, I pressed 9, and a
recording said something like, "You have been placed on our
do-not-call list".

Which is their list of confirmed phone numbers to harass next.

You have a point but my phone had already rung and been answered by my
machine or me. Wasn't I already on the do-harass list?

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 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

Make sure the bell is connected across the telephone line. As discussed
elsewhere, sometimes (US) on party lines the bell was connected from one
telephone line to 'ground'. It may also have been disconnected.

Or it may require a different ring frequency.

--
bud--

On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:56:17 -0500, AZ Nomad
wrote:

On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:40:04 -0400, mm wrote:
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:19:35 -0700, David Nebenzahl
wrote:


I don't know for sure, but suspect that dialing "O" would get you
through to the "operator" the way it does by pressing "O" with such
systems (most are set up to reach some default number on that keypress).

Yes.

Also I think with enough practice, one can learn to make touch-tone
sounds with one's mouth. I think there was a guy on tv who could do
that.

Doubtful. You'd need to sets of vocal cords in order to generate
the two simultaneous frequencies used to DTFM (tone-tone) dialing.

It's been done by whistling.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/us/20engressia.html

I can whistle dual tones myself, although I've never tried using that
talent for phone phreaking.

BTW, it's DTMF, not DTFM

mm wrote:
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:19:35 -0700, David Nebenzahl
wrote:

I don't know for sure, but suspect that dialing "O" would get you
through to the "operator" the way it does by pressing "O" with such
systems (most are set up to reach some default number on that keypress).

Yes.

Also I think with enough practice, one can learn to make touch-tone
sounds with one's mouth. I think there was a guy on tv who could do
that.

I saw that, but it's very difficult because each button generates a pair
of tones.

OTOH, you can pulse dial from a touch tone phone by pressing the
receiver hook the number of pulses for each digit. It's not as hard as
it sounds. There's a lot of leeway in the pulse rate and duty cycle. If
you've ever seen a phone in a public area with no dial or touch pad (to
keep people from making outgoing calls) there's a way around this
limitation.

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

On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 05:14:08 -0700, SMS
wrote:


Also I think with enough practice, one can learn to make touch-tone
sounds with one's mouth. I think there was a guy on tv who could do
that.

I saw that, but it's very difficult because each button generates a pair
of tones.

OTOH, you can pulse dial from a touch tone phone by pressing the
receiver hook the number of pulses for each digit. It's not as hard as
it sounds.

And certainly worth learning when locked in a dungeon.

There's a lot of leeway in the pulse rate and duty cycle. If
you've ever seen a phone in a public area with no dial or touch pad (to
keep people from making outgoing calls) there's a way around this
limitation.

Then too.