News:

"The phone is a remarkably complex, simple device,
and very rarely ever needs repairs, once you fix them." - Dan/Panther

Main Menu

North Galion Signal Corps Phone - Just Arrived

Started by LarryInMichigan, March 11, 2011, 04:08:59 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

LarryInMichigan

I just won this: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120693401128.  Apparently, there wasn't much interest in it.  It appears to have a metal shell, and the dial is an FTR.  I hope that the shell is in better condition than the lousy listing pictures make it look.  The picture below has been enhanced a bit.

Larry




Dennis Markham

Good deal, Larry.  Hopefully you'll get a SL ringer inside too.

LarryInMichigan

Thank you, Dennis.  I would think that Signal Corps phones would all have SL ringers, but perhaps not.  I am anxious to get it an d see how it differs from my normal North Galion.

Larry

Doug Rose

Quote from: LarryInMichigan on March 11, 2011, 04:08:59 PM
I just won this: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120693401128.  Apparently, there wasn't much interest in it.  It appears to have a metal shell, and the dial is an FTR.  I hope that the shell is in better condition than the lousy listing pictures make it look.  The picture below has been enhanced a bit.

Larry




Larry...I can't tell if its metal or not. I think its painted bakelite thats peeling. These are cool phones. The metal ones are different, not nearly as ornate in the back. Either way, its a great deal. I have a metal one that I stripped the paint off of and polished it up to a chrome like finish. Nice hit...Doug
Kidphone

rdelius

All the North Electric military sets I have seen had a plastic shell.Not bakelite or metal. I an talking about the postwar ones with the branding tp6-a on the back. Not WWll ones that might have been the same as civilian sets but moisture and fungus proofed.
Robby

RDP

Larry, I believe rdelius is correct in saying that it's not a metal housing. The stamp on the back was done with a HOT stamp and virtually melted into the phones base, thus suggesting it's made of plastic.
Nice phone none the less at a great price.

dsk

??? May a foreigner get some help here.
The TP-6 did I believe was one model looking uniform, having the same parts, and wiring diagram.

Now I see another design, and searching the net, a 302 was named TP-6 too.

Is it the military way of saying automatic telephone apparatus ???  (improved for working in various climates)

dsk

paul-f

#7
TP-6-A is the specification defined by the government and used when purchasing single line telephones.

It was their way of saying, "We don't care what you make to sell to civilians, but if you want to sell telephones to us, do it this way."

Any manufacturer who wanted to bid on government contracts had to tailor a model to meet the government specs and mark it accordingly.

They obviously didn't have to be physically identical, as each maker used their own housing style.  The specs related more to electrical and installation characteristics.
Visit: paul-f.com         WE  500  Design_Line

.

RDP

I agree with paul-f and without trying to change the subject, this is what the government did when ordering anything I believe as they did with Emerson fan they had them use a two bearing design that is predominate in other fan manufactures instead of the single bearing design that Emerson usually used in their fans but everything else about the fan was as normal.
Emerson marked them with a different letter code, AP-G "G" standing for Government issue.

GG



The number plate on that dial looks like one that was a subject of a mystery and a bit of a debate around here a short while ago.  If you could remove the fingerwheel and post a photo of that numberplate, it could be very helpful in resolving the mystery. 

LarryInMichigan

So, the shell probably is plastic.  I didn't think that it was bakelite because it is obviously much thinner than the bakelite shell on my normal Galion.  The dial appears the be the same as the one on my Connecticut TP-6-A.  I am actually interested in the dial at least as much as the rest of the phone because I might want to use it in my FTR phone which does not have the proper mounting holes for a WE/AE/etc. dial.  I might move this dial to the FTR phone and put a 5H into this phone.  At any rate, I will try to post pictures of the dial which will prove that the face plate is totally different than a WE plate.

Larry

LarryInMichigan

#11
The phone arrived this afternoon.  The shell is plastic.  It is mostly in good shape, but there are some spots that have been scraped, and there is plenty of military strength adhesive stuck to the shell.  The phone needs a thorough cleaning.  The dial needs help in turning, but it did work when I tried it.  It does have an SL ringer.  Someone had connected a Radio Shack style four-prong connector to the end of the cord with the green wire going to the wrong contact.

The phone appears to have been made in 1952.  The WE transmitter and receiver elements are both stamp 52, and the stamp on the back of the shell shows "Order no. 6511-PHILA-51".  You can see from the pictures below that the insides of the phone look nothing like the standard North Galion, but more like a 302.  I removed the finger wheel so that everyone can see the FTR dial plate (which looks nothing like a WE plate).

The seller did follow my instructions to keep the handset away from the shell, so there were no clashes between the two during shipment.





Larry


LarryInMichigan

The dimensions of the base of this phone are slightly different than for a standard North galion.

Larry

rdelius

The same base was used on the Connecticut,north elect,and some western electric military sets.All the sets were tp-6a sets,all parts were interchangeable.Bases had 4 screws.
the tp-6 sets were civilian sets modified for military use by moisture and fungus proofing. they were as different as AE type 40s and Kellogg 925s were both tp6 sets
Robby

GG



I had one of those dials in high school, don't know where it went since then, but I vaguely remember it was Connecticut Tel & Electric, Meriden CT.  The key to this being the rectangular thing in the very center of the rear of the dial, which if memory serves me right, is something you can press in and rotate by 90-degree increments with a flat screwdriver, and serves to adjust the tension on the main spring.  On the front side, the number label retainer ring is more flat than WE or AE, and is held in place by two flat clips that project downward at 3:00 and 9:00 from the inside of the ring, and that fit into slots in the fingerwheel.   

Yes the impulse mechanism resembles FTR, which in turn resembles Elektrisk Bureau (Norway).  Funny how they all kinda' swap memes or something : - ).   

I'm going to have to break down and start posting photos one of these days.

Question: can I post photos directly to this site, or email them to someone who can?  (I'm really averse to setting up Yet Another Account Somewhere on some photo hosting service, and dealing with all that overhead hassle-factor, when it should be simple to just attach photos to postings as on a number of other boards.)