500 set question...yes, rotary dial phone!

[NastyNed2]

I brought in two rotary phones as conversation pieces. One is a Western Electric phone that was in my parents' basement when they bought their house in 1968, and the other is a GTE Automatic Electric phone I had in college.

They're both connected to the same jack. The GTE phone is plugged in with a modular RJ11 plug. The Bell phone is wired into the biscuit block. It only has three wires, red, yellow, and green. The Bell phone does not ring when it is connected by itself. When they're both plugged in, they both ring. The GTE phone also rings when it is plugged in by itself.

Any ideas why the Bell Western Electric phone doesn't ring when it's the only one connected? They're built in the switch as an ordinary 500 set, one TN, both connected as the same extension, just like having two phones plugged in at home.

 

[johnpoole]

the 3 wire phone should ring should ring standalone if you connect the yellow to the ring side of the line...

one side of the ringer was connected to the yellow of the base cord for party line or number assignment...

back in the 60's you could change a home number by moving the yellow from tip to ring of the line..

has not been a real use since 10 party lines died..

john poole
bellsouth business
columbia,sc

 

[NastyNed2]

That must be what I had to do with the GTE phone when I moved home. In the dorm, 4 phones with separate numbers shared a line, but only the correct (or intended) phone would ring. I had to play with the wiring inside the phone to get it to ring in a non-party line setup.

By the way, I found this accidentally while driving to Peoria the other day. There's a telephone museum in Gridley Illinois. Didn't have time to stop, but the photos look interesting.

http://www.telephonemuseumofgridley.org

 

[NastyNed2]

Thanks, John. That did it. I should have thought of it sooner. I always wondered how they got the phones at school to ring the right way instead of all four ringing at the same time. I'll have to find a source explaining what's happening with the wiring in the phone and the ringer coils. Actually, my oldest cousin and his wife are both retired Bell CO empoyees from Chicago. They might know.

I've heard that on some party line systems, ALL phones rang, but each customer had their own distinctive ring pattern, and everybody was on the honor system to answer only their own calls.

My stepkids' grandmother used to work on a real switchboard, plugging the right cord into the right jack. I never did ask her how that worked.

 

[RandalSw]

Finally something posted that I'm an expert on!
Back in the days of 10 party lines, customers were given unique ring patterns to know which call was theirs, like two shorts and a long. My grandmother would pickup calls not for her and listen in. When 8 party lines came in customers had ringers that were tuned to specific ring current frequencies (in cycles per second) 16,20,25,30,33,42,50,66.
When 4 party lines came about 25 and 33 cycles became standard with one party 25 ring to ground, one 25 tip to ground, one 33 ring to ground and one 33 tip to ground.
Bad ground= no ring.
2 party lines eliminated the need for grounded ringing.

 

[johnpoole]

8 freq's.. we never went past 5 for a 10 party line.. but that was also back in the bracket ckt days..

in my area... HISTORY

with 10 party lines each person got just one ring.. removed the need for one long and one short... we connected one side to ground.. ie a 16 cycle ringer, one side on tip the other on ground.. made the last digit of your phone number 1. 16 cycle on the ring side was last number ground... in that exchange, the 1st 3 digits of your phone number was the cable pair... line per term office.. cable pair was from 200 to 399.. so if you moved, your number changed.. we had (at the time) two lines that were not party lines in town.. the doctor and mine.. and if your phone was broke, you stopped me (usually at the diner)... if you didn't pay your bill, i was comming to talk to you prior to pulling the fuse at the protector...

john poole
bellsouth business
columbia,sc

 

[marcuspb]

The good old days of a Tip, Ring and Sleeve switchboard.

 

[johnpoole]

i do not seem to remember the good parts.. i for one did not mind trading my hooks for a keyboard... the 1st phone i installed had a crank on the side...

john poole
bellsouth business
columbia,sc

 

[GHTROUT]

This first phone I installed was a vintage Fisher-Price model, it was bright green and all plastic. And no parts I could choke on.

As I look back at why things are the way they are, it must have had lead though.

GHTROUT.com | FAQs | Recent Replies

 

[NastyNed2]

I guess I started some reminiscing! It's interesting to read about how things were done years ago. My kids' grandma used to plug in the cords in the CO that is now mostly empty space in my town. There were boards for three towns, and she said they literally wore skates on weekends when one person had to take care of all the boards. Apparently they were some distance apart.

My wife used to pick up the phone and tell Sarah she wanted to talk to her grandma. The scary part is that Sarah recognized the voice AND knew which grandma!!! That's when my wife's phone number was something like Blue 402. She and I aren't that old, but I grew up in Chicago (2-line party lines) and she grew up in a small town with a mom and pop LEC. Still is a mom and pop, but they have modernized their equipment.

My dad had bought an antique phone with a crank, but my mom gave it or sold it to someone, not thinking that I might want it. Oh well.

Check out that phone museum web site. I tlooks pretty cool.

http://www.telephonemuseumofgridley.org