Landline Telephones

[rexaircollector]

Little Fred

I spoke with my partner about your phone problem. The older phones are polarity conscious but not polarity matching like technology. You could try and reverse the lead wires at the jack. If you need help, let me know and he can talk you through it. Do you have DSL? It is also possible the filters are preventing the phone from working. Bill says there is probably nothing at all wrong with the phone itself.

Fred N - You little devil!! Placing a call from your position??? That would have been a write up in my old office for sure, maybe even a suspension dependent upon who the observing Supervisor was. I never did that but I do remember a few tricks we played on callers claiming to have lost their dime in the pay phone. Standard procedure was to connect the call and every day, like clock work at 3pm, the kids would get out of school and the flood gates opened with callers saying they lost their money in the pay phone. They knew the system. My friend Steve and I would tell them we had to connect them to the refund center to refund thier dime. Dependent upon which one of us got the call, we would click our "position transfer key" on the TSPS console and announce "Refund Center". Immediately, they hung up but we took it a step further and held the line up. So, you could see the lights flashing indicating the caller was trying to make another call. We would go back on the line and act like we were talking to security to have someone go out to check out the location for possible thieves. Boy, you never saw the lights go dark so fast in all your life. We were young and stupid back then. Someone mentioned the emergency interrupts as well. They were more prevelant when I worked the 4pm-11pm shift and they were all kids. The tariffs stated that to verify the line, $.50 but an interrupt was $1.00. If it was out of order or ROH(receiver off hook), there was no charge. Almost always the response was "refused to clear". Anyway, we can share stories more in person. This has really got my nostalgia side going.

Robb

 

[frontaloadotmy]

It looks like Fred487 and Robb

Are going to be called into the "Toms" office!!!!

 

[coldspot]

I have one of the old phones like the red one. It might need a power supply to light up. The first trim line phones used the same power unit as the princess phone.

The light bulb is not the same as the princess phone it is a odd bulb. To tell if this uses a power unit to light. See the little cover on the phone part over the pushbuttons. Use a small pin and you can remove it. If there is a light bulb under it you will need a power supply for it.

Now to get it to dail out it has been a few years so might have the colors wrong. On you wall jack take the red and the I think green wire and switch them around.

 

[coldspot]

Also the bulb that the older ones used was a 51b code 336850 Sylvania Miniature Lamp Bulbs

 

[pdub]

Robb & Fred (Ida)

We had many customers too that would say they lost their coins and wanted to be "put through". I hated this as well and would do the same thing you mentioned Robb and would connect them to "Coin Control" which rang in to the cord board. They would offer to mail their money back and some would go to all the trouble to give their name and address but as soon as they hung up they'd try to get us to put it through free again. I did the same thing a few times of holding up the line until they gave up and left.

Some of the liars were well known as we had one we referred to as the I-5 bandit. He seemed to travel up and down Interstate 5 and never paid a cent for a phone call. His voice was very recognizable. When he would flash back in for overtime collection he would hang up. I once talked to a woman he had left on the line when he did one of his "walkaway's" and she said he was a family member that was mentally unstable and lived in his car. I wondered how he paid for gas driving up and down the state.

We also had our regular crazy callers (Cah-Razee!) that when you answered they would just launch into a very strange story as though they had been talking to you for a long time and then just as abruptly hang up. I once had a guy at a payphone that said we had planted something in his head and were sending electric shocks through to him when he would pick up the phone.

Robb, I loved your story about the specials. We called them "cut-outs". We luckily didn't have to call and ask but had a magnetic sign that you got from the back of the room and stuck on the door as you left. If you had to go you looked at the door to see if the sign was there, if not you were good to go. Of course if it was an emergency you could just get up and go but better not make a habit of it.

They also frowned on "social talking". Of course I was always doing that and had much fun writing notes back and forth with other operator friends.

Patrick

 

[hooverwheelaway]

That was my next question!

Is it supposed to light up, too??

Cuz the dialpad doesn't.

I did pop the little "trimline" plate out, and underneath a smaller, metal plate came out... and underneath that was a weird looking sort-of elongated bulb. Filament looked to be in-tact... but it isn't lighting up.

I'll play around with a phone jack this weekend.

Ida and Robb-I've got the day off tomorrow... maybe Ida could sit at her switchboard and host a good, old fashioned 3-way call.

Oh, I'm already a phone guy! I just don't have a collection!
Telephones are another thing that have always fascinated me.
...Because I need another collection.

~Fred

 

[hooverwheelaway]

Robb-

We don't have DSL, but we do have phone through Time Warner.

~F

 

[dalangdon]

When I first started working in hotels, the way we knew there had been a long-distance phone call from a room was when an AT&T operator from (I think) Colorado would call. You had to be prepared, as she would bark out the time, toll, and number called, and if you weren't ready, that was just too bad.

And heaven help you if you ever were late on your phone bill. You'd get a bill with the envelope lined in red, and the credit ladies would call you up an berate you.

My mom worked for Northwestern Bell back in the 40's, and her first job was typing long-distance bills, and opening bills people had sent in. She said that people would write terrible things on their bill stubs, and if it were too "indelicate" they had to give it to their male supervisor.

It was a big deal when, after the strike of '47, they went to a five day workweek (instead of working M-F, and until noon on Saturday)

 

[coldspot]

Yes it lights you need the power supply. Anyone for a princess phone well work. They light a lot nicer then the newer ones that came out with the green led bulb in them. It has a nice bright white light to it.

There is one ebay seller I try to find them I would highly say to buy from. They are one of the best for the power part I have found. I will take a photo of the power unit and post it.

 

[coldspot]

power supply unit. Now I did not take a photo but to use it you hook it to the phone jack on the two unused wires. But the ebay seller has the kit it is two cords. One runs to the power unit into a block thing for two phone lines the other cord from the phone runs to the block and plugs itto the wall. Power unit is little and works great.

 

[coldspot]

other side of power unit.

 

[coldspot]

LAmps or Bulbs. They are hard to find but last a long time.

 

[coldspot]

my touch tone is being used by my sister but this the other one with the bulb to show how they light up. Yours will look about the same bright white and pushbuttons look great.

 

[coldspot]

The phone

 

[coldspot]

phone

 

[hooverwheelaway]

I get the overall concept... but with only one cord coming out of the phone, how exactly does the connection to both the phone jack and the transformer/electrical outlet get made?

I'm not following something.

 

[coldspot]

Ok I will go over this the link is to the ebay seller they have two listed now.

First you will need to take a pice of phone cord and use the two wires I think Yellow and Brown. This would be for line two of a home phone. Run this to the power unit.

Now plug phone into jack and should light. To keep power from back fluseing to other phones in the house. Remove the two yellow and brow wires coming in from the main line.

I will look there was a site that showed this and had photos.

http://cgi.ebay.com/1-NOS-2012C-WES...goryZ985QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[coldspot]

Look at this photo for the opther way to do it. It is the Yeloow Black wire. TO do like they did you need a two line phone plug there cheap and a phone cord to cut one end off and use the two wires Yellow black there your power wires.

It is a easy thing to kkol up to the jack open jack on wall. Remove Yellow Black wire and tape them up you will not need then. Buy some phone cord cheap stuff to buy. Use only yellow and black run to the black and yellow screw point in the jack. Run cord to power unit and hook wires to the back side of it.

Now pluge phone into jack. Make sure your phone cord has phone pins you can tell buy looking at the plug. It should light up.

http://www.ericofon.com/sale/princess/princess.htm

 

[coldspot]

Sorry about the typos. I am and a dark room and can not see the darn keys. Think I should read over before I post.

Should be make sure the cord has 4 pins on the plug. To tell take the plug and look at it and the groves you will see little wires there should be 4 of them.

 

[coldspot]

Did this quick with paint. You see the little box I made on the bottom right is the power unit. Showed how the wire runs to the jack. Also use two black lines to show you the main wire you need to unhook.

Your jack could be different but Yellow and Black are the wires coming in from the street you will need to unhook.