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Howdy from Northern Cali

Started by AliceWonder, May 20, 2022, 07:37:22 PM

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AliceWonder

Hello.

I tend to data dump (on the spectrum) so I'll do the TLDR first and then my data dump introduction...

TLDR: I'm in late 40s, soon to be rewiring phone lines in home, in love with the 702 series Princess Phones (Grandma had one, mother let her assisted living helper have it when Grandma died - no grudge, she worked hard caring for Grandma, but I would have loved it). Will be looking for classic rotary and touchtone phones at thrift shops / yard sales / etc. to try to restore to working order.

--- The TL Part ---

Big house, currently seven adults spread across five bedrooms in a sort of semi-socialist communal living arrangement that Bay Area housing costs dictate is the only way to keep us from being homeless. I do most of the maintenance, including planning functional upgrades, with the home owners blessing (I've known them for most of my life, before I was an adult).

Recently rewired the coaxial cable system and installed Cat6 for superior LAN speeds. Next up is modernizing the phone system. I'm leaving the existing PTSN system mostly alone (it has two customer bridge modules in the NID, one is used by alarm system and other isn't used) but will be installing both a six-line NID (Tii 3600 series) and a three-lie NID (Tii 3700 series) in the attic for VoIP line distribution.

Don't like transformers etc. in attic, so VoIP ATA will actually be in the garage, and lines will run from the FXS ports to the six-line NID that I will be using for phone service.

Plan is to put any needed ring signal boosters/conditioners, pulse to tone converters, etc. that are needed for classic analog phone compatibility by the VoIP ATA before that lines goes up to the six-line NID.

The three-line NID will be to support Princess Phones (and other things). I have detailed plan but Introduction thread probably isn't best place.

Anyway, I want to scavenge old phones to restore and use in the various bedrooms. Residents can buy their own newer phones if they want modern crapola, but restored classic phones owned by our residence collective will be made available to anyone renting a room, and the phones will work, and the VoIP system will support them.

I'm here to try and learn as much as I can in general and when I do find a phone that needs to be restored, get specific information and help when needed fixing that phone.

What help I can offer to others is rather limited right now, phone wiring and repair is brand new to me. Until last week, I didn't even know why the two wires were called "Tip" and "Ring"  :P

MMikeJBenN27

#1
Quote from: AliceWonder on May 20, 2022, 07:37:22 PM...soon to be rewiring phone lines in home...
You should leave your phone wiring alone, unless the phone company is forcing you to do something that will hurt the performance of "classic" phones.

Mike

AliceWonder

Quote from: MMikeJBenN27 on May 20, 2022, 10:26:12 PMYou should leave your phone wiring alone, unless the phone company is forcing you to do something that will hurt the performance of "classic" phones.

Mike

The existing phone wiring I am leaving alone. The jacks like the original cable TV jacks) are in illogical places in each room, I don't understand why the original low-voltage wiring layout was done the way it is.

The phone company NID supports six lines but only has two customer bridge modules in it. I suppose we could have more installed, but I just want to leave it and use one line for alarm system (already wired) and other phone house phone, tied into the VoIP system via a PXO port on an ATA.

Other than that one PXO port for the house phone (that also lets VoIP dial out if Internet down), the VoIP stuff will be completely isolated from the original PTSN wiring.

We can put VoIP jacks where they make sense, and still have access to the original landline jacks if anyone really needs a land-line in their room (e.g. for a fax machine)

NorthernElectric

Cliff

Doug Rose

Alice... a warm welcome to the Forum.....Doug
Kidphone

oldguy

Welcome Alice. You sound very ambitious. You might want to look into Panasonic KX-T61610. The info is under "key systems". I use one to connect the phones in my phone display. I'm in Northern California too, Grass Valley, north east of Sacramento
Gary

markosjal

If it were me I would say that many rooms / people you need room to room calling/transferring as well. I would definitely use asterisk as a PBX and all Grandstream ATAs that support rotary dialing . Grandstreams are also often cheap enough to allow a dedicated VoIP line per room  (each with dedicated ring power) .

There is even a separate thread here about how to do this on a Raspberry Pi 3 or 4 using Google Voice, with NO FEE per number.


Phat Phantom's phreaking phone phettish