Can a Nortel Norstar phone be used on a basic residential phone line?

[dpoirier]

Was given a Norstar phone (nice phone) and want to use it at home... but when I plug it into my residential jack, I get rapidly blinking red lights and no dial-tone.

Are the Norstar sets not compatible with residential (non-business, non-multi-line) phone lines? Is my "gift phone" defective?

Thanks for any help.

 

[trvlr1]

You need the Norstar Key System to make this work, it will not work directly from the line.

 

[dpoirier]

Thanks trvrl1... I'll google "Norstar Key System" in the hope that it doesn't lead me into a bottomless pit of undecipherable options. My first question will be: is it cost effective to get this "Norstar Key System" or should I just write-off the Norstar as an unusable gift...

 

[hawks]

Do a search for Norstar 3x8 that's probably going to be the least expensive

 

[chadATX]

write it off, to expensive nortel phones wont work at home.

Chad
Austin, Tx
Wag-more....Bark-less

 

[GordonKapesMZ4]

I all for promoting use of a Nortel phone system in a home. If someone is as fascinated about the Nortel product as much as I am....more power to you and enjoy it.

My friend had me install a Nortel Norstar 8x24 in his house for a total of $110. I purchased an older 8x24 Norstar system on ebay for $25, and bought 12 phones for $5 a piece and various other parts and pieces which equaled about $110. You can use only one POTS analog line or up to 8. You can also subscribe to VOIP service from a pure SIP provider such as VOIP.MS and get an Analog terminal adapter and use SIP based phone service on your standard analog lines on the system.

You'll have to know how to punch down a 66 block...do you? It's actually quite simple and keyword the search on google and you'll find an easy way to do this. The punchdown block needs to be a 25-Pair Male Connector prewired to a 66 block that I purchased from Graybar...its almost as expensive as the system....around $50.

The wiring diagram can be referenced below:

http://www.jandjcommunications.com/Quick_Reference_Guides/norstar/Norstar_824_Wiring.pdf

You can then either use the Tseries digital phones or M 7XXX series digital phones on your home system. For a homeowner, these are best purchased from a refurbished site or from ebay....type in keywords like Nortel M7310 or Nortel T7208, etc. to find phones. If you have kids, I'd recommend the older M series....as they are rugged. Get the black color as the older beige and grey sets turn yellow.

I am a bit crazy and have a larger BCM system at home....but its amazing how simple the Norstar actually is, so if you feel up for a weekend hobby, you've picked the right one. Its amazing at quite what the party favor you'll now have. You can page people to dinner or tell your wife to bring you a beer over the paging system. People are fascinated about it here in Chicago, I actually have a reporter coming over in about half an hour to interview me about my large Nortel system in my place. HAHA

Any questions?

 

[SYQUEST]

Except NT never made any beige sets! The colors are ASH, BLACK, and GRAY for the M7xxx sets. METROLINEDIRECT.COM is a good source for refurbished NT equipment, and you get a 1 year warranty.

....JIM....

 

[GordonKapesMZ4]

Sorry Jim, I meant Ash.....We had a ton of Ash sets in our 7,000 stores in the US, and most are now yellowed.....if they were ordered in black, they most definitely would still look up to date.

 

[ironhorse17]

Don't forget the red phones.

 

[norstarboy125]

well lets not forget that they did make some analog nortel sets, cant really think of the model number off hand but i do have a few sitting around somewhere. still finding it kinda odd that someone would give this person a nortel phone period? its not like they carry them at walmart or anything???

 

[KE407122]

Not that odd. It's human nature. When installing digital PBX systems in large campus environments, (3000-10,000 lines) a fair number of proprietary digital sets would magically disapear---people liked them and took them home and found they didn't work on an analog line. We'd recover a few in disposal bins because they were too afraid to put them back where they stole them from.

Nortel sets were never called beige they were called Chameleon Grey.

KE407122
'Who is this guy named Lo Cel and why does he keep paging me?'

 

[GordonKapesMZ4]

Ash phones not beige.....but anyways, most of those Grey and Ash phones are now yellowed.....I can't believe that even the Grey phones yellowed? Black sets that are well maintained still look brand new and the ones that are dirty, clean up really well.

Even though I have a system at home....I've obtained my phones legally and from ebay or from Nortel vendors.....

 

[ironhorse17]

I thought it was dolphin grey.