WE 500: Not being heard on other end

[briantroutman]

Hello-

A few months ago, I posted a thread about setting up a small in-house network of rotary phones, and I ended up purchasing two black Western Electric 500 phones (let's call them A and B) and a Panasonic Easa-Phone 616 PBX to connect them. Both phones are later models with all modular jacks.

In general, Phone A appears to be OK. I can pick up, hear dial tone, and dial Phone B—and my voice can be heard on Phone B. Also, I can hear what seems to be normal sidetone of my voice on Phone A.

Phone B, on the other hand, has a problem: I can pick up, hear dial tone, and dial Phone A, but my voice can't be heard on Phone A, and I also can't hear any sidetone on Phone B.

Here's what I've done so far (with the result of each listed in bold).

• Unplugged/replugged/jiggled all modular connections - no change
• Swapped handset cords (leaving handsets connected to their original phones) - no change
• Swapped handsets between Phones A and B - Handset A works fine when connected to Phone B; Handset B still does not work when connected to Phone A
• Swapped transmitter units between Handsets A and B - Transmitter Unit B seems to work fine in Handset A; Handset B still does not work when Transmitter Unit A is installed
• Bent contacts inside the transmitter cup of Handset B slightly outward to ensure they are making firm contract with the transmitter unit - no change
• Examined connections on the back of the transmitter cup - At a glance, all appear to be tight with no corrosion or broken wires; nothing appears different between the two handsets

So by process of elimination, the problem would seem to be something inside Handset B—maybe a connection that looks OK but isn't? Is there something that commonly goes bad on these handsets that I should check?



Additionally, both phones seem to have two other slight problems.

One is that the volume level of the voice is rather low. As mentioned above, only Handset A is actually transmitting voice at the moment, although when I swapped handsets between phones (and swapped transmitter units between handsets), the low volume level remained about the same. I took out both transmitter units and tapped them against a hard surface, but the improvement was slight at best (maybe just a placebo at that). I only have the PBX to use the phones on, so I'm not sure if that is the weak link.

The other problem is that both phones are quite "noisy"—I get quite a lot of pops and static if the phones are moved around and the modular cord connections are in any way disturbed. Is this just indicative of contacts that need to be cleaned?

Thanks in advance for your suggestions and advice!

[Pourme]

Couple of things come to mind. I think you have to have one of the phones connected to extension 11 for the 616 to work properly. It's been a while since I set mine up & haven't messed with it for a while. Have you tried to switch the extensions? Phone a in phone b's extension and vice versa?

Try putting a phone in ext 11 and phone b in 12 or maybe another one? perhaps you have a extension in the 616 that is defective.

Someone else may have more for you. I'm sure there's something I'm not thinking of.

[briantroutman]

Hi Pourme-

Thanks for the suggestions, but I doubt that's the cause. I've tried both phones in various jacks on the PBX (including 11), and the result is the same. Additionally, leaving the phones plugged into the same PBX ports, I can swap the handsets between the two phones, and the problem will follow Handset B, regardless of which jack its attached phone is plugged into.

[Pourme]

Gotta be a wire. Is that handset wired properly? As compared to the other?

[jsowers]

Could it be the varistor on the receiver (ear) capsule of phone B causing a problem? Maybe it's open or something? If you have another receiver capsule to swap, or I suppose you could swap them A to B and see, just for the heck of it? You don't have much else to try. I have seen those varistors go bad before and cause problems. Just replacing it--it's wired across the two white wires in the handset--will fix the phone sometimes. Also it could be possible the white wires are shorted together inside the handset, so check those too. They should be going opposite directions on the receiver capsule if seated properly.

Do you have a continuity tester, like an ohmmeter? You could test all the wires in the handset and even get a small pop out of the transmitter and receiver to make sure it's connected to the handset contacts. You could also take off the phone housing and use the red and black handset wires to test for continuity to the transmitter and the white wires for continuity to the receiver.

Good luck with your troubleshooting.

[briantroutman]

Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions. I have to apologize: I led you on a bit of a wild goose chase through a mistake on my part. Apparently as I was swapping components between the two phones in an effort to isolate the issue, I somehow managed to double-swap the handset cord—meaning that I inadvertently tested the same cord with the same handset twice, thereby assuming that it wasn't the cord—when in actuality, it WAS the cord. Stupid mistake on my part!

I swapped the cord, and Phone B and Handset B are working OK now.

[jsowers]

Thanks for letting us know. It's always good to have a set of "known good" pieces you can use to swap out when you have problems like that. And a continuity tester would have saved you so much time. I use a small, inexpensive analog multimeter and it works fine and doesn't take up much space.

[tubaman]

Don't feel bad - on more than one occasion I've lost track of which bit is good and which bad when fault finding.
I refer to them as 'senior moments' (even though I'm nowhere near being one)!

[HarrySmith]

And a continuity tester would have saved you so much time. I use a small, inexpensive analog multimeter and it works fine and doesn't take up much space.

You can usually get a small multimeter for free from Harbor Freight with a purchase. Check out the website for a coupon. Buy a screwdriver and get a meter!

[RB]

Don't feel bad - on more than one occasion I've lost track of which bit is good and which bad when fault finding.
I refer to them as 'senior moments' (even though I'm nowhere near being one)!

I will second that!!! and I am also no where near old...57 is not old...is it???
I refer to those moments as  " nice job dumb @$$" , pay attention to what you are doing!!!
Although...it does not help...