WE model 500 low output transmitter?

[dbsoundman]

Hi all, second post here... I have a Western Electric model 500 that had lower than normal output on its transmitter. Recently I found a newer touch tone phone of similar construction (probably ITT or something), so as an experiment I swapped its transmitter with the one in the WE 500, and now the WE has proper normal transmitter output. Looking at the transmitter element itself, it looks like a pretty simple piece of equipment, so I'm not sure what would cause it to start to lose output. Is there anything I can do to "restore" the quiet transmitter? If not I'd appreciate resources on where to find a good replacement.

Thanks,
Dan

[Phonesrfun]

The carbon granuals become compacted after years of sitting around and not being used.  Give it a good rap on its edge on a table or counter top.  That will loosen them up.  Other than that, there is nothing else that can be done, since it is a sealed self-contained unit.




Welcome to the forum

[Charles]

You can also clean where the contacts touch the element (as well as the contacts themselves). I have tried several ways to fix these with small success. Some of them can be opened (the center cap on the back of the element) and carbon can be dumped out, "de-clumped" then put back in (though attempting to re crimp the cap is hard).

The best fix is to find new ones (they have some NOS on ebay). I believe they are still made by Audiosears
http://www.audiosears.com/products/data/mics/1583C/

[twocvbloke]

One other option, if they would ship to you, is an electronic transmitter, which replaces the carbon granule transmitter with a self-contained microphone & associated electronics capsule as a drop-in module...

http://telephonelines.net/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=810

I have one myself somewhere, and when it was in use, it was very good quality (at least, nobody on the other end of the line complained!!)...

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=12208.msg129015#msg129015

[dbsoundman]

Thanks everyone. I just took another look at the transmitter, then saw the problem right in front of my face: there's a small hole in the carbon element! It works well enough to use for my test phone right now so I'm not worried about it, and eventually I'll find more phone parts to fix this one up.