Questions about a phone tester

[ken g]

Hi i am new here . I have worked on , played with , goofed with and restored several phones of all types over the years so this aint my first rodeo . I have not taken the time to understand the technical part of it and the phones i did fix either already worked or i simply got lucky by trial & error . I have concluded most average dial phones follow about the same design & wiring .

My main hobby of 40+ years has been old radios of all types and long time at the ARF antique radio forums .

With that out of the way ...... I own a jech tech linker II  phone tester . You plug 2 phones in and call ''call yourself '' how fun on those lonely nights ! . I used this on a job to test modern phones . Now i use it on old phones .
I noticed when i test 70's phones it will usually work fine , you can call each phone and it will ring and so on . Trying to test older phones alot of the time i dial and the other phone wont ring .
However there is a second setting on the tester where you simply lift the receiver and the other phone will ring without dialing . That setting usually always gets each phone to ring but without dialing .

Is anyone familiar with this tester ?   

I just bought a collection of old phones , desk phones . wood crank phones , foreign phones and so on . That is what sent me here to learn more about how to get some of this to work ( if possible )  so i will pop up with different phones & bug you guys about them .

Thanks .

[unbeldi]

Welcome!

Sounds like your device is what is most commonly called a "line simulator".
They come in varieties with typically two or four station ports; perhaps the best known ones are those made by Teltone. They made them for a variety of line signaling types (LS, GS, E&M, ISDN).   I haven't come across your brand.

When using test equipment to diagnose other devices, the first list item of things to do, is getting to know the test equipment as much as possible.  This is especially true for old and vintage equipment, the test equipment can be just as defective as any other piece of equipment.

So, I would suggest to you to acquire a good digital multimeter that can measure current, voltage, and resistance.  It should have both AC and DC capability.  The AC modes should be able to measure true root-mean-square (RMS) levels, because one frequently encounters various A.C. frequencies in telephony.  Many cheap multimeters are only optimized to measure AC accurately at the 50 or 60 Hz frequencies of utility power.

With this you would examine your line simulator. Measure ringing voltage in the various modes, line voltage, line current when shorted,  ring trip, etc.