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Who among us has the newest WE 500? And newer non-WE 500 types?

Started by bellsystemproperty, October 25, 2009, 07:31:42 PM

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Adam

It's also very cool, IMHO, that the 2001-vintage Cortelco 500 still has an internal part inside the dial that is branded "ITT".
Adam Forrest
Los Angeles Telephone - A proud part of the global C*Net System
C*Net 1-383-4820

deedubya3800

I've checked this out, and nope, it's not a problem with the contacts or the wires at all. I've tried directly jumping GN to R, and I get the same result. It doesn't completely mute the receiver; it just softens it slightly. Does anyone else have one of these Cortelco 500s that can corroborate my findings?

McHeath

So clearly I've missed a few things around here. ;D

QuoteI think I might just win this one:

March 2006 Cortelco 500.  I have two of these; here's the info from one of them: 

The sticker on the bottom of the set includes the following:

050044-VBA-20M   3/06  HAC
Has FCC reg numbers, and a patent notice about the ringer.
Says "Assembled in USA with pride" and has a UL mark on it as well.

The date on the sticker on the box is 01/06, so it's likely the boxes were produced earlier and then the phones were produced and boxed up later. 

The external appearance is identical to the 2003 Cortelco in McHeath's picture.  Except for one little thing that's almost impossible to notice:  The dial number plate is just a bit closer to beige than the ash color of the rest of the housing and handset shell. 

Okay wow, an almost end of production model 500!  Way cool!  I really kinda thought they were mythical, that nothing past 2003 was actually made, but you've gone and got one. 

Also:

QuoteI've checked this out, and nope, it's not a problem with the contacts or the wires at all. I've tried directly jumping GN to R, and I get the same result. It doesn't completely mute the receiver; it just softens it slightly. Does anyone else have one of these Cortelco 500s that can corroborate my findings?

My 2003 Cortelco 500 does not mute the dial either.  And it was fresh out of the box when I opened it a couple of years ago.  I piddled around with contacts and such, moving this to here and there, nothing helped.  I assume that the network that Cortelco makes does not have the capability to mute the dial clicks.

Alas.



Adam

Quote from: McHeath on July 10, 2011, 12:34:50 AM
My 2003 Cortelco 500 does not mute the dial either ...  I assume that the network that Cortelco makes does not have the capability to mute the dial clicks.

If that's true, it should be relatively simple to examine the schematic of the classic 500 network, figure out which component(s) is missing and add it to the circuit.  It's probably just like one diode and/or capacitor or something.

Weird. But it makes sense.  I seem to recall reading in some BSP somewhere that in the later production Western Electric networks, there were two styles, one for rotary phones and one for touch tone sets.  If I've retained the proper brain cells, I believe the difference was in the area of where the rotary dial contacts were connected (contacts F and RR).

So, in that later time period, if Western Electric had two different networks, it's very possible that ITT/Cortelco did too.  It seems that in the later years of Cortelco's production, at some point they had stopped making the rotary variation of their network, even though they were still making rotary sets.

I'll try to remember what BSP that was in...
Adam Forrest
Los Angeles Telephone - A proud part of the global C*Net System
C*Net 1-383-4820

Adam

Ah I found it.  See attached.

Important things to note pertinent to this discussion:

Bottom of page 2: where it explains the 425D network is intended for use in rotary dial equipped sets

Bottom of page 4: on the 425K network, the dial pulse capacitor at terminal F is omitted, and it is intended for touch-tone equipped sets.

So, I bet you these later Cortelco networks are missing the capacitor between terminal F and the resistor that goes to RR (see fig. 5 in the attachment).
Adam Forrest
Los Angeles Telephone - A proud part of the global C*Net System
C*Net 1-383-4820

McHeath

Makes sense.  I will pull my Cortelco apart and see what the situation is on the network. 

Michael Dennis

Hi everyone, I'm new here. Don't know zip about phones, yet. I have a red 500DM, I think, as well as a green, blue, black and beige example. Don't know anything more, they're in an area I can't get to now, I'm having to address a water problem in the basement, rainwater comes in anytime it rains hard so everything is pulled away from the walls and there's a lot of stuff down there. Can hardly walk around.

I have maybe a half dozen older phones too. The forum looks like THE place to learn. Hope everyone is having a great weekend.

Mike

McHeath

Hi Michael and welcome.  On the bottom of the phones there are usually numbers that gives dates made.  Older date codes are usually "2-66" format, meaning Feb 1966.  Newer ones are more like "78249" which means 1978, the 249 day of that year. 

And some don't have marks as they've been removed or what not.  There are usually dates someplace inside as well.

Michael Dennis

Hi McHeath. Thanks very much for the welcome! Mine reads 9-79 on the bottom. At the moment I can't reach the others, I've got stuff pulled out in my basement. Like an obstacle course down there right now. :D

Mike

George Knighton

I have an ivory AT&T 515BM that I bought evidently NOS, recently.

The base is marked 82040, and the shell is marked (84).

It's in use, actually, and does pretty well.
Annoying new poster.

southernphoneman

#70
currently my newest 500 is my 1982 white western electric which as some of you may already know is up for auctuion on ebay. I don t have this phone anymore as it has recently sold on ebay.

Babybearjs

how can anyone really rely on the dates... on my phones, bases get switched, shells get changed and so on... so all the dates change... and the phone isint an "Original" anymore. and of course, I can always REMARK the date if I wanted to....
John

andre_janew

When did they stop making the dial-less telephones?  I have a black 1962 500C telephone and want to know if it could be the newest manual phone.

paul-f

Quote from: andre_janew on December 01, 2014, 06:00:44 PM
When did they stop making the dial-less telephones?  I have a black 1962 500C telephone and want to know if it could be the newest manual phone.

You can buy one today.


An internet search for "no dial phone" or "courtesy phone" will give you many options.
Visit: paul-f.com         WE  500  Design_Line

.

andre_janew

I see what you mean.  Cortell, Viking, and SciTech all make no dial phones.  They have wall and desk models.  They have them in red, ash, and black.  I had no idea that they still make such phones.