Flat cloth 3 conductor cord

[TelePlay]

Was looking for a cloth handset cord and thought I found a deal. Wrong.

The eBay description said it was an "Antique vintage telephone handset cloth covered western electric" and the photo looked like it could have been round.

http://tinyurl.com/7atd5cs

The item description said "This matches the original cord and will help to make your vintage telephone work. It has gold connectors on each  end with 3 wires and is the standard 4 1/2 ft . in length. Comes with a restraint for the handset end. Use this to replace your frayed or broken cord on all makes of telephones. 
Your choice of brown or black."

Was disappointed when it showed up as a flat grey 3 conductor stiff cord covered with brown cloth. The eBay deal was "No returns or exchanges." The description is correct but the item does not match the title of the auction.

While it would work, it just wouldn't be original and not much I can do about it other than chalk it up to a $16 lesson learned.

That makes the $10 lesson I got last week (discovered the hard way I got a counterfeit $10 in a stack of bills received in change for a $50 for a small purchase at a gas station) seem like a deal. Well, at least I have a retainer I can use, somewhere, I think.

BTW, ordered a real black rubber handset cord from Old Phone Works yesterday.

[LarryInMichigan]

These are often used as line cords so that modular connectors can be easily attached to one end.  I have two or three which came with phones, and I do not mind them too much for line cords.  I would not want to use one for a handset cord though.

Since the seller described this as matching the original cord, and it obviously does not, I would complain to him and ask for at least a partial refund. The cord in the listing picture does not look flat, so perhaps he shipped the wrong cord (and did not simply misrepresent the item).

Larry

[TelePlay]

Larry,

Thanks for the suggestion. I just sent the seller a question about maybe shipping the wrong cord. As I looked at it, I don't see how it could be used for a handset for the wires on both ends are too short to make the trip to the receiver element and the others too long for use with the transmitter without being curled up or cut and re-spaded. The seller has a 100% feedback rating with over 1,700 items sold which confuses me, if this wasn't a mistake.

I purchased a very nice re-furbed candlestick a few years ago and the line cord from the subset is brown, cloth, perfectly round and equipped with a modular connector. It seems to have a new cotton covering unlike the plastic "cloth" material used to tightly wrap the flat cord I bought.

And, thanks for the suggestion. I can always save it and someday us it as a line cord.

Since I use most of my phones on stage for plays, I've found that a standard XLR mic cord works best as a line cord. 25 feet, 2 conductors and as soft and pliable to lay well at any point during use on stage.

[LarryInMichigan]

I didn't think that a stage prop phone really needed to have a line cord.

Larry

[twocvbloke]

From my brief stint behind the scenes at a small amdram theatre, it helps to have a phone that "works", as in rings, on stage to make the play or show seem that little bit more realistic...

[TelePlay]

Larry,

In 20 years, I've never done a play with a phone stage that was just a set prop. If it's on stage, it's to be used. Movies and TV are different and do appear for only their visual presence, used or not.

Prior to coming down with phoneitis a few years ago, some props people used to have someone pushing a momentary switch using 60 Hz with a bell removed from the phone to make a phone "work" at a strange 30 Hz monotone ring.

I did a play a bit ago title "Alone Together" that had two working 500's in each of two bedrooms, a 554 on the kitchen wall and a Trimline on the living room coffee table. The 554 and Trimline rang together and the bedrooms separate. The kicker was they called each other during the play. And I had a fourth line in the tech booth so I could ring any of the three on stage lines as called for in the script. Used a Teletone 4 POTS simulator to run that system.

Funny part was one of the actors didn't know how to use a rotary dial phone - listen for a dial tone, dial the right number and hang up before dialing again. Quite a laugh at his expense.

Have one coming up with a 565, 202 and Princess phone on stage. The 565 will be a single line phone but have rigged up a 10 volt one cycle per second circuit to flash the line button. The Princess phone will begin to ring in the dark so the lit function of it will be cool.

Prior to my phoneitis, I used to use sound effects over speakers but live phones really ad something to the play. And, when actors pick up a phone in mid ring, it's fantastic to have the ringer stop. It also helps for the people calling each other on stage to hear each other on the phones to cut down on the distraction of having to listen to the person talking across stage. A working system really makes it real for everyone.

Driving Miss Daisey has two home phones and a pay phone. Boolie's phone goes from a 202 to a black 500 to a colored 500 as his wealth grows while Daisey's phone never changes.

Crimes of the Heart just had one ringing on stage but a very important part of the play.

Guess that's why I have over a hundred phones of different periods, colors and types.

[TelePlay]

Larry,

To get back on topic, I'm trying to set up a 202 I recently received for a show in February. It has a coiled handset cord which is what I want to replace. The dial is in great shape but needs a subset.

I am using a 302 base as its subset. The 302 dial has problems and the case is quite beat up. I am having a hard time finding a 4 conductor mounting wire so will build one out of 4 different colored strands of 22 gauge rubber coated wire and Techflex braided covering. Since the phone won't be moved, that should work. One of the hardest things to find is small gauge 4 conductor rubber coated black wire.

It's the coiled handset cord that will look out of place as the handset is removed and used to make and receive calls. That's why I bought that brown cloth handset wire that won't work. I'll go with the black rubber cord I bought from OPW.

I'll use black XLR mic cable as the line cord. I have another 202 with subset somewhere but haven't worked on it since I bought it and don't know if it is in working condition. The 202 and 302 components I have are in good condition, both technically and cosmetically, so are stage ready.

Theater is all smoke and mirrors. What one sees from the audience is one thing and how it's put together to work which the audience doesn't see is another. They won't see the subset, the mounting wire or the line cord but they will see the 202 and the handset.

[GG]

Interesting to know how it's being done for live theatre nowadays.

IMHO straight black rubber cords will always be OK on any 20th century phone before the 500 era, used as a theatre prop: the audience won't be able to tell from the distance they're watching, if a phone should have had a cloth cord.  Coiled cords for 302s are acceptable.

Re. the PBX & ringing issue: how did you set it up so they could dial the other phone without having to remember a number, and how did you get at least a 4-digit phone number for that?   Did you discretely post a phone number to dial, next to the phone?  One option might be to put the numbers on the dial center, e.g. Kitchen 2368, Bedroom 8632, etc., so they can entirely naturally stare at it before they dial. 

Something that might be cool: have an audio circuit on the "phone line" so it puts the "telephone audio" over the house speakers.  Use any Radio Snack recorder coupler with an adaptor to get into an XLR jack backstage.  This gives the actors the ability to speak in normal phone voices including quiet voices where appropriate, and gives the audience the realistic sound of a phone conversation. 

Re. actors and rotary phones: you could give them a 500 to take home and use for a while so they get used to it.  If they don't have a landline at home, let them practice on a 500 in the theatre, making real phone calls.  (One never knows, some of them may want to get one for themselves to use in real life after that.)  This is an issue with a lot of oldschool artifacts (using a typewriter, smoking a pipe, using a filing cabinet, using a gas stove that doesn't have a pilot light, etc.): audiences can tell when the action isn't quite smooth enough to be "natural," and it takes practice to get it right. 

[TelePlay]

Interesting to know how it's being done for live theatre nowadays.

Re. the PBX & ringing issue: how did you set it up so they could dial the other phone without having to remember a number, and how did you get at least a 4-digit phone number for that?   Did you discretely post a phone number to dial, next to the phone?  One option might be to put the numbers on the dial center, e.g. Kitchen 2368, Bedroom 8632, etc., so they can entirely naturally stare at it before they dial. 

Something that might be cool: have an audio circuit on the "phone line" so it puts the "telephone audio" over the house speakers.  Use any Radio Snack recorder coupler with an adaptor to get into an XLR jack backstage.  This gives the actors the ability to speak in normal phone voices including quiet voices where appropriate, and gives the audience the realistic sound of a phone conversation. 

I use a Teletone 4 ( http://tinyurl.com/73xzhl6 ) POTS simulator to run the phones. It has 4 lines so one goes to the tech booth and 3 are available on stage providing full functionability for all phones. Using a touch tone phone in line 1, all 4 of the lines can be programmed in many ways including their number. I found that a 4 digit number works best on state. It's long enough to make it look like a real number is being dialed but short enough not to bore the audience or irritated the director (long pauses on the stage bothers them). I run a Cat 5 line from the booth to the simulator on stage and wire the phones as needed from the simulator. And, yes, I print the numbers to be called on finger wheel cards to help those making calls.

As for patching a call through the house speaker system, I tried that in On Golden Pond but ran into problems with the digital sound board sending a signal down the XLR line that confused the Teletone simulator. It was only a two weekend 6 show production and we only had one weekend to set up before opening night so didn't have time to devise or create a circuit that would separate the board from the simulator. I tried a Radio Snack pickup coil but discovered the sidetone heard on the off stage phone (an operator or a distant caller or called party) from the on stage person broadcast over the sound system created a slight echo and confused the person using the phone on stage. Resolved that by placing a microphone on the off stage phone so only the off stage person would be heard through the on house speakers. That way, the audience would hear the on stage actor by way of the hanging on stage fill mics and the off stage person by way of the special mic set up. All I had to do was use an equalizer to chop the off stage mic to a frequency range similar to a WE F1 transmitter. Could even alter the voice to make the operator sound like Lilly Tomlin's highly nasal character without the accent, of course.

I'm doing Crossing Delancy early next year which requires 565 in the book store, the 202 with a subset at home, and I'm going to use a lit Princess in a dark cameo area so the audience will see there is a real phone being used. That 202 is the one with the coiled cord is the one that needs to be replaced with a straight cord.

20 years ago, ringing phones would be recorded sound effects played on a speaker near the phone. Some people used 90 VAC 60 Hz power with a push button set up behind the flat to manually ring a phone and would have to remove one of the bells to make it sound more like a phone. Obviously, two way conversations were not possible. Ever since my first bout with phoneitis about 3 years ago, the theaters I work at really like and are impressed with what I can provide and do with phones on stage. If they only knew how much I've invested in time and money, they would be shocked.