Landline Telephones

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You'll have a wall full of phones before you know it.

Ugh... Mike... I was afraid of that.
Believe me, I've been looking around, too.

Ida-that phone is simply divine!
I can just see you sitting in your kitchen, glass of wine in one hand, cigarette in the other, 50' extension on the phone--spreading the latest gossip with Helen.

We'll have to call each other sometime this weekend--both on our new phones. Love it!

~Fred
 
Ida and Veda...

Ida, that 302 is simply stunning. It will look fabulous next to your bed. Can't wait to test it out in April.

Veda,

Too true, too true. Here are a few resources to check out. Be careful, like Hoovers, shopping for phones is addictive...

www.oldphones.com (The owner is a doctor, who does this as a sideline. His inventory changes often.)

www.oldphoneworks.com

www.frillfreephones.com (The owner is cranky, but they are reputable and have a nice selection.)

www.oldchicagotelephones.com (You can also find her phones--at a better price--on eBay. Her phones are mostly restored, but she does an excellent job of refurbishing them. Excellent customer service.)

www.porticus.org

www.phonevault.com

Here's a photo of an NOS Trimline from the Oldphones.com site. Fabulous.

2-8-2008-19-18-29--buffster.jpg
 
Hoover it looks so nice all lighted and working. So happy you got it to light up and work. You will find that phone is great for everyday use. Not much to go wrong with them at all.

Keep a eye out also for the same phone in the wall mount type. I love them also. Trimline to me was the best phone in my eyes for looks and the keypad right there at your use. No running back to the phone to fial. Oh I am lazy. lol
 
Irishwashguy

There was something a little more 'real' about the old electromechanical exchanges. The modern Irish/British ring tone generated by digital switches is just fairly dull and always sounds exactly the same. The old equipment in service through the 1970s and early 80s was a little quirkier each switch behaved a little differently.

The digital equipment's great, reliable, high tech etc etc, but it's just a big load of boring looking computer cabinets all operating silently.

I always find it amazing that the old crossbar, rotary and step-by-step switches kept the world talking for so long. They were amazingly complex machines by any standard, yet they worked quite reliably and often without major issue for many decades.

Despite being entirely analogue, they were able to route calls, play out appropriate announcement messages and interact with end users pretty effectively.

Although that being said, without all the digital circuit switching and now IP switching developments we wouldn't be chatting on this board, so I suppose there's no point in being too nostalgic about those rooms of clicking relays :)

Below : A distribution frame in an Ericsson ARF (crossbar) exchange as was used in Ireland and formed the basis of the automatic system here from the 1950s onwards.

2-9-2008-06-28-8--mrx.jpg
 
More...

Here's the actual crossbar switch matrices that routed the calls.

2-9-2008-06-31-34--mrx.jpg
 
Wow! I always wondered what that looked like!

The new equipment does not have the personalitly that the old does, although, the GDS 5000, used in alot of Verizion communities has a little 'tinkle' in the background when it rings. I can always tell when I hear it, I guess my ear is kind of sensative to it. When I call Tigard, Or, they have one. I found a clip of a live working central office on tape of an actual phone call being processed. I am looking forward to going to the telephone museum in Seattle, only open on Tues.

 
Trimline question...

Got a couple of wall mount Trimlines, only using 1 at the moment, but it has a problem. It has the round buttons and the transformer lighting. Problem with it is that it dials the wrong number! Somehow the keypad got scrambled and if I hit some of the numbers, not all, I get different numbers -- if you know what I mean. Anyone have any simple fixes for this?
 
Funny that you mention that about the phones dialing the wrong numbers.

I've had that happen a few times since I got my trimline up and running. I could swear that I'm pushing the correct buttons, but for some reason I've been having to say "Whoops, I must have dialed the wrong number" when a party other than the one I intend to call answers the phone. I've even tried calling my cell phone a few times, back when I was just testing the phone, only to get connected to a completely different number. Hmmm... And sometimes it dials correctly--like last night, when I called in to get our voicemail.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 
My "Twilight Zone" phone has been that way for years. I moved it down to the basement next to the dryer since I don't make too many calls from there. Every now and then without thinking I'll make a call to a friend and get some stranger! I keep thinking I have to do something about this but it's far down on my list.
 
Hey, thanks! Good price, but it appears to be the square button design , I have the round, don't know if they are interchangeable. If they are I'd need a face plate too, I don't see any listed.
 
We had people like that too!!!

It seems the phone companies of the entire western world were once staffed by people like her!

Change her accent to a slightly more west of Ireland one, add a few phrases like "yes caller?" and a nice friendly recording: "Operator services! your call will be answered in STRICT rotation. PLEASE hold the line... " and you'd have your standard old-style Irish Telecom operator.

It took a LONG time for many of those people to realise that customers had a choice and that you could no longer refer to them as "subscribers"

Also, some of the old technical terminology vanished e.g. "STD codes" (Subscriber Trunk Dialling Codes) i.e. Area Codes...

You can't even contact an operator from most telephones anymore, the old "10" operator service is not available from many fixed line phone companies and no mobile phone companies offer it anymore. You haven't been able to reach an operator from a payphone since the 80s
 
having trouble finding the link...

What was that link for getting the power supply for the phones? I've got 4, (3 princesses and a trimline) that I need to get them for. Thanks!
 

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