New member from Britan and questions about GPO British rotary telephones

[Dialvintage]

Hello, I bought a rotary phone from ebay and it arrived on Thursday. I love it- it is in good condition and it works very well. It is model 746 (F) and also has PO FD1 and Batch sampled FWR 8/1 on the sticker underneath. I have read up a bit online about British vintage telephones, and it seems that this phone dates from 1967-70 and was refurbished in Wales at some point.

What I'd like to ask is this:

I also read that only BT supports pulse dialling and so you cannot dial out but can receive calls if the phone is pre 198Os. Yet my phone works! It was listed as fully working but I expected to only receive calls due to its age and not being on BT.

Now the funny thing is that on Thursday I wasn't able to make any calls when I dialled- just got the dialling tone but the next day theron it worked- I presume I was dialling too slowly before.

So it musn't be true then that pre 198Os telephones cannot dial out?

I don't think mine has had any converters fitted.  

So is there wrong info out there about rotary telephones? Mine works a treat- can even dial 1571 for my messages.

[twocvbloke]

It depends on who your telephone line supplier is, if it's BT-based (say, SKy, TalkTalk, Primus, Orange, etc.), then it will most likely accept pulse dialling, if it's with cable (mostly Virgin Media these days) then some areas will accept it, others won't...

Also, a lot of modern lines are very picky when it comes to dial speeds, some will only accept an exact 10 pulses per second, other's have tolerances for slower or faster dials, but generally speaking, while you can still dial numbers, if there's a problem then they'll just come back and say "Sorry, we don't offer support on that"...

Yours sounds like it's been refurbished and probably refitted for PSTN systems (I.E. converted for use with BT plugs & sockets), it may have an actual date under the "batch sampled" label giving it's original manufacture date...

And your dial may need some attention, unplug it, dial a Zero and if it takes more than 1 second to return, then it'll need a lube job, not a hard task, but a bit fiddly if you're new to them...

[Dialvintage]

It depends on who your telephone line supplier is, if it's BT-based (say, SKy, TalkTalk, Primus, Orange, etc.), then it will most likely accept pulse dialling, if it's with cable (mostly Virgin Media these days) then some areas will accept it, others won't...

I'm with Talk Talk and according to their website they are not using BT lines now but are using their own and don't "officially" support pulse dialling.

 

Also, a lot of modern lines are very picky when it comes to dial speeds, some will only accept an exact 10 pulses per second, other's have tolerances for slower or faster dials, but generally speaking, while you can still dial numbers, if there's a problem then they'll just come back and say "Sorry, we don't offer support on that"...

No idea how many pulses my telephone is doing but it is working!   I even rang my Dad's mobile on it and it worked though he said I sounded distant LOL.

Yours sounds like it's been refurbished and probably refitted for PSTN systems (I.E. converted for use with BT plugs & sockets), it may have an actual date under the "batch sampled" label giving it's original manufacture date...

There is another label underneath yes but don't want to take the top one off as I'd probably rip both of them. I will take a photo of it on my friend's phone and post its photo soon. It does look like the 1967 model to me. I could message the seller and ask him if my phone has been converted.

And your dial may need some attention, unplug it, dial a Zero and if it takes more than 1 second to return, then it'll need a lube job, not a hard task, but a bit fiddly if you're new to them...

It seems to be dialling faster now- perhaps it was just cold! Thanks for the tip.
So I assume pre 1980s rotary phones do need to be converted then?