WE 202 please give me info...

[LongBeachFox]

So I was digging thru the garage and I found a phone that my grandpa had saved

Thru a little research I think I have narrowed it down to a Western Electric model 202.

D body, I cant tell what type of receiver it has... It has the spit cup.

my grandpa was apparently cheap so he rewired the insides so the phone company couldn't tell that he had more than 1 phone.

The paint is odd, it is heavily sagging. I thought it was aluminum rust at first but its appears that the paint has a textured finish. It has small flecks of white paint splashed on it from repainting a room years ago.

Lastly, the other 2 oddities are
1) the dial is black with no letters, it has the A.E. Co stamp on the inside of the dialer.
2) the reciever, where the cord meets the handset is straight. The contour does not dip down at the cord.

FYI I have a fiberoptic (FIOS) web/telephone connection. i hooked it up to the landline, and the pulse tones will actually work; I can dial with it! I was under the impression I could only use Tone phones...

[LongBeachFox]

[Jim Stettler]

Welcome to the forum.
That is an interesting # plate. I don't recall seeing a WE plate like that.
< In re reading I see thast it is probably an AE dial, Haven't seen an AE plate like that either>
I am not surprised it works. I have been collecting WE for decades. It would be more surprising if it was broke beyond repair.
JMO,
Jim

[Greg G.]

Does that say "Hodoo" on the dial card?  Who do what?  Voodoo?  You do?  Go do the voodoo that you do so well! (Hedley Lamar, Blazing Saddles, 1974).

[Doug Rose]

Hi...you have an Automatic Electric dial on a Western Electric D1 or 202. This is not uncommon as parts were parts to a repairman. Welcome to the Forum....Doug

[baldopeacock]

How common is that white-on-black rural dial plate, on an AE dial?

[LarryInMichigan]

I have seen the white-on-black dial plates on AE dials made for the military.  Perhaps this was a pot-war surplus dial.

Larry

[jsowers]

Does that say "Hodoo" on the dial card?  Who do what?  Voodoo?  You do?  Go do the voodoo that you do so well! (Hedley Lamar, Blazing Saddles, 1974).

Briny, it's Hodge, as in hodgepodge, which is what this phone seems to be. It looks like it has an AE handset as well.

And that line about "voodoo that you do so well" is originally from Cole Porter's song You Do Something To Me. But I like how Hedy Lamarr (that's Hedley) says it in Blazing Saddles better. One of my all-time favorite movies.

[Doug Rose]

How common is that white-on-black rural dial plate, on an AE dial?

I have seem them mostly on Ship phones with the locking mechanism on the AE 40s. AE is not my strong suit, so I cannot tell you how uncommon or common they are. I think Terry would be better qualified....Doug

[LongBeachFox]

Thanks for all the replies guys!

Hodge was the families last name, so I assume they had their own number written on the front of the phone. (times havent changed i guess, people still write their cell #'s on the back)

Interesting that you say that the dial might be war surplus. My grandpa was in the pacific theater so I'm pretty sure he spent time on ships, even though he was army.

given that we established its a D1 phone base; can anyone tell me what type of metal it is? cast iron?

Im trying to understand whats buckling the paint.

[LarryInMichigan]

It is some sort of Zinc alloy.

Larry

[LongBeachFox]

aww zinc, thats unfortunate. I hope its not corrosion peaking thru the paint.

Since you guys say its not an all original (priceless) i might paint it one of these days.

I am confused as to why there are so many contacts (screw-terminals) inside. I guess they are all for the ringer?

Can anyone recommend a cheap bell ringer that i could hook this to? I dont want to have to harvest a piezo buzzer from a modern phone.

Also is it true that voltages can spike to ~90volts on a phone line? I saw somewhere that it will go that high for older-heavy mechanical ringers. When I was testing this phone, I was just holding the wires together, and when the ring came through it seemed like a pretty strong current(shock).

[JorgeAmely]

Hi LongBeachFox:

Welcome to the forum and the 90 Volts AC Ringing Voltage club. Ringing voltages these days are around 90 Volts AC, but they can go as high as 125 volts too. There is a famous member in this forum that once innocently placed the leads in his mouth when all of a sudden the phone rang. It was not pleasant to say the least.

If you use a modern buzzer as a signaling device for your antique phone, Alexander Graham Bell is going to turn around in his grave.   All joking aside, you need a subset box (available at decent prices from eBay) and wire it to your phone to make it look right. You can also use an old 302 base as a ringing box. Ray Kotke sells the cover if you want to pursue the 302 solution. You could potentially wire your phone directly to the phone line as is, but is not a highly recommended solution. It is always good to use an induction coil to interface your phone to the phone line.I have one like yours wired for direct connection to the phone line and it is just TOO LOUD.

[Jim Stettler]

aww zinc, thats unfortunate. I hope its not corrosion peaking thru the paint.

It Shouldn't be corrosion. Zinc doesn't corrode, they use it as a rust inhibitor. It can protect the metal even when "chipped".

(Anyone remember the "They are de-zincing my car". It was a shop movie abot everything that is zinc plated in your car).

Jim

[bingster]

The bases do get a bit of corrosion under the paint occasionally.  It's a bit of white powdery substance that forms, causing bubbles under the paint.  I've never seen it eat into the metal, though.  Once the paint is stripped and the base is sanded, there will be no evidence that there was ever anything amiss.

These phones were originally wired to a black wall-mounted box, called a subset, as mentioned.  The subset contains a ringer, condenser and induction coil.  The ringer is the least important thing in the box, and the last thing to worry about adding.  Connecting the phone directly to the line, without a subset (or a suitable equivalent), will cause demagnetization of the receiver element in the handset, eventually degrading it to a point at which it will no longer reproduce sound.

Check this thread for more information on 202 wiring, subsets, and subset alternatives:
http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=784.0

Incidentally, the handset on the phone is not all that common, and if you sold it on ebay, you could easily gain enough money to replace the dial and handset with the correct Western Electric versions.