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Need help with a 500...

Started by Sean B, June 17, 2011, 05:30:12 PM

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Sean B

Hello everyone. I'm new to rotary phones so please forgive me if I misuse any terms. I got my hands on an Western Electric 502 A/B and tried to connect but had little luck getting it to work. I heard a very low dial tone that increased in volume when I tried to dial a number. While I heard the phone emitting pulses in the earpiece, I wasn't able to dial out. Eventually I got a recording telling me to "hang and try your call again. " After hanging the phone up, I tried calling it from a different line but got a busy signal.

I'm hoping its a wiring issue, but I'm not sure what to do. I looked at the diagrams posted for the 500, but I have something (I don't what it is or does) under the dialer, so I figured I'd post here before I started moving wires around and made things worse.

Thanks for your help in advance!

Sean B

If any more photos would be helpful, let me know.

HarrySmith

Welcome to the forum.
It is an exclusion set. One of the plungers operates the exclusion switch. Try lifting the white plunger under the handset. You can also try hooking your line cord directly to the network, L1 & L2.
Harry Smith
ATCA 4434
TCI

"There is no try,
there is only
do or do not"

Sean B

Ah, okay. After lifting the white plunger, I am able to make outgoing calls, but I am unable to "hang up" the phone- unless I push the clear plunger by hand, while leaving the white one up. Any suggestions on how to correct that?

paul-f

Welcome, Sean.

One of the joys of working with vintage telephones is that we never know what's happened to them since they left the factory.  It was common for phones to have been refurbished several times during their useful lifetime, so some parts may have been replaced.

Phones with extra features, such as the exclusion switch on the 502, were favorites for experimenters, ham radio operators and other tinkerers.  The current wiring may bear little resemblance to its original state.

Therefore, a good first step is to look at a wiring diagram and trace each wire from component to component and restore it to the original state.

The 500 diagram obviously won't have the extra components.  A diagram for the 502 can be found in the TCI Library using this link:

http://www.telephonecollectors.info/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_details&gid=2838&Itemid=2

If the phone is wired properly and the mounting cord is attached to terminals 1 and 2, the set should work as a standard 500 set.

For your purposes, no mounting cord wires should be attached "TO EXCL STA" or "TO KEY EQUIP."

Let us know how it goes.
Visit: paul-f.com         WE  500  Design_Line

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Sean B

Well I finally had some more time to work on the phone, I played around with the exclusion switch a bit and was able to get everything working. Thanks!

paul-f

Congratulations, Sean.

Do you have other phones in your collection?
Visit: paul-f.com         WE  500  Design_Line

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