Landline Telephones

[launderess]

Not to hijack another thread, so stared the query on it's own.

Anyone else still using landline telephones? Rotary or dial, doesn't matter, just interested.

Cannot think of a home one knows that does not have at least one landline phone, most are cordless or mixture of corded and cordless. Touch tone prevails, but think a few of the old timers still have rotary service (am sure Verizon didn't do away with it yet).

Personally love the older Bell "Princess" and wall push button telephones. Heavy and built to last, the handset was designed so well to either hold in one's hand, or use one's shoulder for "hands free" such as when doing things in the kitchen or trying to get the children dressed.

Do know most of the young generation moving into digs of their own, go for strictly cell service, like Jimmy from the commercials, their mobile phone is their home phone.

Landlines have shown their merit several times over the past years in crisis situations. During at 9/11/01, cell phone service in the NYC area was either jammed and one couldn't get through, or down all together. My phones all worked fine. Same with the past several blackouts, which left cell phone users literally "in the dark".

L.

 

[badata]

buffster....................

your welcome. always on the lookout for you!!!!!

 

[gansky1]

This is a fun thread!

I wish I had more time to spend on the old phones I've collected - not nearly as many as some of you though, I feel deprived! I had a picture of the "extras drawer" that I have but I can't find it now. My favorites are Trimline rotary and Princess rotary styles - or the early Touch-Tone models. My house needs some re-wiring and adjustments to make them all work properly, but I just switched back to Northwestern Bell (Qwest now - but that name is a travesty) so we have enough power to run them all again.

 

[sdlee]

Thank you Pdub,

...for posting that Lily tomiln Record. I think that I love every line in it, esp the following quips,

have I reached the party to whaom I am speaking?

oh you dont understand,this is the phone co. we are not subject to city, state or fedral regulations...we are omnipotent..thats potent with an omni in front of it

oh dear me then.....Im afraid we will have to discontiue your outgoing service. and if we do not recieve payment within 10 days we will send a large burly serviceman to your home to rip it out of the wall

wouldnt you rather pay?, then to lose your service a possibly the use of one eye?

dont take it personally,we may be the only phone co in town but we screw everybody

you say the line is busy? Well maybe your husband is using his instrument?

now Miss Crawford according to our files your Pepsi cola companies has five thousand of our phones, now if my dime from your pop machine isnt reimbursed pronto we are going to start pulling your plugs a six pack at a time

the obsceen caller said he was going to do what to you? wait a minute is that F as in Frank?

0ther voices on the line? 12.50 a month dosent buy perfection

The Number for the Bijou theatre.No. You dont want to see that film, its filthy.

Go look it up yourself I got better things to do

color? but you said black? Well Im sorry we at the phone company do not consider Black colored.

we also like to look into our dimes return file to see how many times youve pulled this stunt before.

many,many, many funny moments..too too many to mention
I could go on and on.

 

[rickr]

Land lines

Hi Kimberly!
Yes, I still have my land phone and always will. The security system has to have a land line to notify the security company of any problems at the house.

I have an old backlite dial phone in the basement from the 1950's that is operational. Also have the reproduction candlestick dial phone in my bedroom. (reproduction from the 1970's) I installed a ringer switch on this phone, so I can disable the ringer before I go to sleep.
I seldom use these two phones, only if I recieve a call and I am on the second floor or the basement. I have a modern cordless phone with answering service installed in the kitchen.
The cool part of having the old phones hooked up and operational, is the "real ring" from bells in the old phones.

 

[rickr]

modern phone

Pixs of the cordless phone in the kitchen. This is the phone I use 95% of the time.
I do not own, nor do I wish to own a cell phone. To me they are a rude interruption. I feel the same about 95% of cell phone users. Timot says I must get a cell phone, once he is released from the correctional facility. However, that will be a war that I hope to win!! <:

 

[cehalstead]

land line phones

Just call me old, or something like that. I like knowing that there is a phone on the wall in the kitchen, where one has hung since 1962 and that one is beside my bed. No searching for me! I do have cordless phones, but being that I live in an area prone to power failures, I like my hard wired sets. Frequent power failures are also the reason I converted back to gas cooking in 1994, but that is another topic. Several of my phones are old (Bell System)and one is a 1930's set that works better than the newer ones. I also have a cell phone and have had since 1993. I like the security it offers when I am away from home and the fact that I can have my land line calls forwarded to it, so no one knows when I am away. But after saying this, I must admit I have worked for Verizon and its former incarnations for over 29 years....(ps to Laundress....rotary service will be provided at least until the year 2079, as outlined in an agreement made by the government and the phone companies in 1979).

 

[DADoES]

Land line, of course. Among other things, it was required for dial-up Internet service until April 2007 when we shut down the business and I got cable service.

I have a cell, mostly to be available for the grandmother when away from home and for my own security in such instances, but it has a limited-time and limited-area calling plan. I use the cell for outgoing long-distance calls within those parameters. Rarely for local calls. I certainly don't consider it to be my primary teleco service. Incoming cell calls may provoke a reaction of mild irritation to more upset depending on who is calling and why (if it's not urgent enough to justify sapping up airtime).

 

[launderess]

RickR

Am impressed on how you keep your kitchen so spic and span. Well up to Hyacinth's standards! All we need to do is get you a set of Royal Doulton!

 

[launderess]

RickR

Those candlestick telephones always remind me of Bugs Bunny cartoons. *LOL*

L.

 

[rickr]

Thanks!
BTW..... I have a gas range,and it is vented to the outside via range hood. The room was last painted in 2002, so that proves that whites can stay white in a kitchen with a gas range.

What is Royal Doulton??? Sounds $$$! <:

 

[panthera]

yup, yup

I done cut the wire last year. Only use VoIP and cell phones. Did set up a converter so I would have the convenience of my old cordless phones when calling or receiving calls.
The big problem with VoiP and cell phones is emergency calls. In Germany, emergency calls route to the address of the service subscriber. Better than nothing, but still not as good as the direct 1:1 allocation landline subscribers have - right now, for instance, I am in the US using the VoiP system. Works great...except for that one little problem. Little, that is, 'till you need it.

 

[maytagbear]

Landline!!!!

The security and reliabilty and overall ease of a landline means a lot to me. My former internet was dial-up, my current internet is DSL....

I had a cellphone the last few years of my mother's life...we needed it, and I needed to be able to dash to the supermarket, pharmacy, or library and be able to monitor her.....I have not had a cell phone since 2001, and don't really need one, since I don't currently drive.

However, pay phones are disappearing with annoying frequency and rapidity.....so, I may wind up getting a pre-paid cellular soon. I don't want to, but, as I said, pay phones are disappearing. I do go "out" into "the real world" every so often, and so far, people have been kind about letting me use their cells, but can such kind strangers be relied upon?
(Like the time I was in Boston in summer 2005, took the WRONG commuter train, and ended up out towards Foxboro instead of Newton/Hersey. A nice young woman loaned me her cell...)

I am not thrilled with cell phone service here in the United States....plans are needlessly complex, full of "gotcha" clauses, and like so many things in this modern world, you wind up paying a lot for not much coverage, not a lot of fidelity (I don't know which blasted cell company was "do you hear me now?"--they all seem to be pretty interchangable with less than intelligible signals), and less than no service Either on their "service" numbers, or when you go out of your 5 miles.

There are people who legitimately need cell phones, and most of them use theirs sanely and discreetly, however, they seem to be in a decided minority.

A friend of mine is trying to get me into this "Skype" thing. I remain unconvinced, but I'm willing to give it a try. It just seems very complicated. When it comes to electronics and the like, I am a Bear of Not Much Courage and Brain.

To qnd, I quote one of my favourite songs of the 80s, by a group called ABC. "I've seen the future, I can't afford it!"

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[volvoguy87]

My land line service.

I do have a cell phone (Verizon service, Samsung phone), but I have never been without a landline. I am probably the only guy in his mid 20s out there who not only prefers a land line, but a rotary dial at that. I found a Western Electric 302 in my basement and put on a new line cord with a modular end in the mid 1990s. In 2001, I ordered parts from a place that makes parts for Bell System phones and built an exact replica of a WE candlestick (but with a Kellogg dial). I had that candlestick phone in every college dorm room I called home from sophomore year through grad school.
I love Bell System phones. They are heavy, like an appliance should be. They have excellent sound quality, and they are very reliable. When they were built, the phone company owned all the phones and people just rented them from the phone company. In order to reduce service calls and increase customer satisfaction, it was in the best interest of the phone company to build 'em to last. Those phones are over-engineered, over-built, simple, and their resulting track record can't be matched. Aside from replacing the line cord, the only part on my WE 302 that has been changed is the line cord, everything else is original and in fine working order.
In college I also had a WE 2500 (the typical slant-front touch tone desk phone) and my phones were the only ones that worked during power failures (the cordless phones had base stations which needed power).
I hate cell phones, although I use one regularly, because their call quality is NEVER as good as a land line, especially if there is a Bell System phone on either end. I have also found cell phones to be generally unreliable. The phones themselves are fragile, they are prone to electronic bugs, and they never seem to age gracefully. Also, I can't recall how many times (a lot) that I have had service problems because of software issues with my cell phone. The Bell System provided generally good service for a century WITHOUT SOFTWARE ISSUES!!!!! We can stand to learn from that. Bells and whistles can be fun, but at the end of the day, it's simplicity that tends to be most reliable in the long-term.

A message to all the cell phone companies: You can cut my wires from my cold, dead hands, still clutching my candlestick. I will stand against the sea of wireless because I require consistently good service. Even with the expense, a landline is reliable and the call quality is consistently good.

Also, sometimes you just want to make a point. Have you ever had a really awful call with customer service, or some other person on your "brown" list? You can emphasize your displeasure at their existence by slamming down the receiver, it's fun and stress-relieving. Sadly you can't do that with a cell phone. What can you do, beep the button in a really angry fashion?

One ringie-dingie,
Dave

Phoneco inc. a good place for Bell System phone parts:

http://www.phonecoinc.com

 

[launderess]

What Is Royal Doulton?

Someone loosen my stays and get the smelling salts!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Doulton

 

[rickr]

Ok,Laundress, now that I know what Royal Doulton is......

Do you really think it would be a wise investment at my home?

I mean, with the guys that eat over here, dinner can go from this.......

 

[rickr]

.

...to this in about .03 seconds!! lol!!

So how many place settings should we order??? (to last a
month, that is) lol!!

 

[sudsmaster]

I don't have a cell phone. I get by just fine with the landline phone, plus it brings me the internet via DSL - for a lot less than the cable company would like to charge.

Most of the phones in the home are cordless, but I keep two corded phones - one on my office desk and another in the master bedroom. These are touch-tone. I have some older rotary dial type phones but the ringers no longer work (I assume the phone company doesn't supply the voltage and/or current needed to ring them anymore).

 

[oldhouseman]

Both

I have only cell service at my home in Sparta. I have land service at the Atlanta place. I have a 1928 telephone that looks like the one from Col. Klink's office in Hogans Hero's and an early push button phone from the late '70's. The '28 is in Sparta because I meant to get land service installed but have not yet because using the cell is easier. Maybe when I close out the Atlanta place because I will need it for DSL service. I will get a pic of it when I go home this weekend (stuck in Atlanta for work during the week).

 

[sdlee]

on the run. or Id reply.......

,,,,,, but I am much too busy.lol

Im one of THOSE................Cell phone only. No Im no techy or living in the now or anyything like that.See I cant even type......that fact is Im on the run constantly due to work and life style, It just makes sense for me to have a cell phone.

We dont generally expierence outages here on any kind of regular basis.The 9 11 stories are kinda scarry tho. I still dont know why the terrorist didnt hit us instead of New York. We have the largest sack base in the nation and Mt Rushmore, a world icon and one of the seven wonders of the world are right here. Guess they were more intrested in just killing people rather than being strategic. Plus they prolly dont know where South Dakota is.....lol

I do have one thing to share that you fans of the old hardcore weapon like telephones might appreiciate......

Picture it, 1976 or so. My sister has a creepy boyfriend that even my folks dont like. Hes at our house, no parents are about and hes annoying me just by being alive.

Im on the phone to my best friend and this whacko decides out of the blue to come over to me and twist my arm and try to make me say uncle. Well I take it as long as I care to and then out of the blue with every fiber of my being I crack him in the head with the handset.
He goes down.
My sister wails you killed him.
My other brother yells GOOD!
the phone is broke in half.Yep Laundress its that handy part you talked about that can fit on your shoulder while you stir the pot or dress the kid, or in my case take out the creepy boyfriend.
Even tho I do not have a land line I do like those old phones. I feel absolutely no protection from this thing thats in my pocket.What am I gonna do?Text someone to death?

Anyway I hope you all enjoyed my story.

Incedentally my only punishment was to buy western electrics phone from them and also I had to be the one to call them and tell them what I did to it,
traumatic for a lil kid.
You know what else, we took my dad duct tape,(another great product) wrapped it around that hand set and used it for two more years.I look back on it now and think well why the hell not that damn thing was paid for.

 

[toggleswitch]

~What am I gonna do, text someone to death?
For fun, try texting while driving it's all the rage here.

Oy YES honey; discussing your feelings and gossiping to the effect of tearing another person to shreds while driving (and while you endanger the lives of all around you) is CRUCIAL to your well-being. UGH!!!!!

Multi-taksing is nice, in theory, but it appears to me that all tasks suffer and may not occur or be completed to a satisfactory end.

I have my landline and it ain't going nowhere. As Lady L has stated cells/mobiles were useless in an actual emergency.

 

[buffster]

Western Electric Trimline and Princess Phones

Launderess,

Do you collect phones? If so, we need to chat. I collect WE Trimline and Princess phones.

Rickr,

Love the kitchen. That green with the granite counter tops and dark wood cabinets looks fabulous. Love the cuckoo clock too. Reminds me of one my grandparents had.

Mike

 

[maytagmark]

Aww the good old days

I remember when we only had rotory phones and the numbers started with two letters our prefix was wi5 for Texas City or sh4 for Galveston,and party lines and being able to call your own number from home to play a trick on someone in your house,I remember when touch tone became popular along with the other optons,call waiting,call forwarding three way calling etc.and you could go the the phone store and pick out your phones,as a teenager I had a rust colored trimline phone with all the calling options,I still have a black rotory deskphone,a tan rotory princess phone and a couple of others in the garage, I'm glad there were no cell phones growing up,my mother would have been calling every five minutes and we would have had no fun,all she could do was go outside and yell our names when it was time to come inside,we were usually at the park three blocks away and we heard her. Mark

 

[badata]

i don't have a landline. i only have my cell. i've not ever had a problem yet. because of work i am on my phone ALL day long (i travel all day) i haven't missed the home phone really. i have more than enough minutes and without 2 phone bills. i haven't had a landline in about 3 years or so.

 

[sudsmaster]

HObart

I still remember our childhood home telephone number two letter start: HObart-7 something. Prophetic, eh? Haven't heard that for some 45 years now...

 

[irishwashguy]

Ok, time for me to chime in........

I love telephones, I have many. One of which I have had since 1984, a 302 that I have in my kitchien as well as a metal one in the living room and a 500 set with a metal dial in the bedroom w/ a touch tone enhanced mouthpiece, I do have a newer cordless that is also in the bedroom with a taling caller ID.just in case..You can't beat the old phones for being sturdy and reliable. I have a telephone guy here in Portland that fixes phones in his basement for fun and makes alot of money doing it. There is a big call for these phones. When I bought my first 302 in the 80's , it cost me 3.00. I have seen them sell for 300.00 . I also have a cell phone as well as DSL. I do deliveries for my job.I am amazed at the number of people that take their cell phones with them from where ever they are from in the country. It makes it interesting when people call me at work for an order. I will always have a land line, my cell phone works until I walk down the wrong hall way at my house, and oops, your call can't be completed as dialed. Kind of primative compared to the rest of the world.I miss how telephones were when I was a little kid. You could tell where you were calling just by how it sounded.

http://www.dmine.com/phworld/sounds/misc/mamamf.mp3

 

[rp2813]

Landline all the way for me. I don't think there's another product or service, not even with the name Maytag on it, that can match the reliability record of landline service or Western Electric hardware. I own a few WE 302 sets both metal case and bakelite from the late 30's early 40's, a few WE 500 sets from 1950-56 or so, a 40's vintage lineman's set and my most prized 1931 202 model with original E1 style handset and 1931 bell box. The 202 is the only one currently connected and I use it regularly to make calls that don't require a touchpad. The original receiving elements on these phones are kind of squawky but apparently there were never any retrofits made. Combined with the old bellbox hardware, they make a loud hollow click when dialtone (and dialing) starts and stops. It's just like in an old movie. The E1 handsets were phased out and replaced with the F1's which had better receiving and transmitting quality. My E1 has been retrofitted with an F1 transmitter but it still allows for the "spit cup" mouthpiece to be used so the early look of the handset remains the same. Western Electric was routinely replacing the original transmitters on E1 handsets with the new F1 type as these phones were returned, and eventually they started placing the F1 handsets (as found on 302's) on the 202 bases. This is why finding a 202 with an original E1 handset can be difficult.

I have found that Old Phone Works is the best vendor out there for phones and parts. I've provided the link below. I highly recommend them for any old phone parts a person might need. The guy I spoke with there when I was looking to replace my E1's transmitter steered me towards the F1 retrofit and I am glad he did. I wouldn't be able to use my 202 with an original transmitter because even in pefect condition, the transmission quality was inferior to that of the F1. They also offer internal and external touchtone conversion kits for rotary phones.

Rich, the ringers should still work on your old phones. I have an old chime box that works just fine on the voltage Verizon is sending out. If the ringers aren't working for you, it's likely a mechanical or wiring issue inside the phone set itself and not about current or voltage.

Re: the old alpha-numeric phone numbers, believe it or not, you can still find references to those old exchange names being used in certain day to day telco operations. The first phone number we ever had when I was a kid started with AXminster 6. Then we had CYpress 5 after moving to a different part of town. I have re-created our first phone with the CY-5 number on a 302 model and even have the original CYpress 5 number label on it, which I rescued from underneath a later label that was all numeric.

Rich, if you're interested I could probably get you the alpha-numeric version for your current landline number if you provide me the first 3 digits.

Ralph

http://oldphoneworks.com/

 

[hoover1060]

I still have my land line

I consider it my *main* phone too, even though I have a cell phone and carry it with me always, I like the land line better.
My cell service is mediocre at best, so I can't rely on it to be my only phone.

 

[wiskybill]

Landline service here...

I haven't had a cell phone for the last 5 years, couldn't justify having both at the time. May get another cell sometime this year, but only a pre-paid version, no contracts for me.

My home phones range from a dial Princess and a mix of Trimlines to a modern cordless with caller-id. I like them all.

 

[joeekaitis]

Landline with DSL, and we have a corded phone we can plug in if the power goes out. I prefer the peace of mind of E911 (Enhanced 911) that gives the dispatcher our street address at the moment of connection.