BECO 1101 disassembly

[Paul Albertson]

Recently purchased a BECO 1101 Linesman handset. Works on my home line. I want to open the rubber body and look inside. There are screws clamping the ends of the body around the dial and microphone. Seems easy to remove these screws. Does anyone have experience opening this rubber body? Any cautions about disassembly? Thanks.

[G-Man]

Both BECO and WECo buttsets are easily damaged because the neoprene/rubber has aged considerably. So be careful when spreading it apart since some of them easily tear apart.

BECO used whatever dials were available when they assembled them so you might find anything from WECo/NECo 2, 4, 5, or 6-type dials.

[rdelius]

In later years BECO also used Japanese dials.They are larger than American dials.
They also made a tone version but do not know what touch pad was used
Robby

[Paul Albertson]

Thanks for the cautions. I will go carefully and check the seams, etc.
At work I am rather resistant to the steady push to newer technologies, but I am forced to use a cell phone for anytime interuptions to my life. I would like to make this human interface more friendly.

I have a wild hope to place the guts from a bluetooth headset within this unit, without disturbing the original parts functions. The intent is both would work side by side independently. The bluetooth would transmit the dial pulse as sound to the cell phone. In this case, I want distinct clicks as the dial returns to home.

I have a strategy on how to get the cell to accept the sounds as a phone number and place the call.. My next challenge is to determine how to get the but set to ring for incoming bluetooth calls. Suspect I need a battery within the handle and the bluetooth to trigger a transistor. I would love to add a small dual bell set to the outside, but I may have to settle for using the speaker. Some surgery required.