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5H W.E. dial-worked before but not breaking tone now with FIOS

Started by DarrenWGaransi, November 05, 2011, 11:17:57 PM

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DarrenWGaransi

Hello Everyone,

Well there is some good news.  I was able to speed up my #6 dial in my W.E. 302 phone by cleaning the mechanism and spraying the inside of the governor with PTFE spray-it's right on the money now and dialing just fine every time. 
The other issue, however is with my 554 on the wall in the kitchen.  I never had any issue with regular POTS but with FIOS, the dial does not break the dial-tone.  I switched out the dial for a #6 (from my 302), reconfigured the wiring and got it to work that way but for some reason, I can't get the 5H dial to break the dial tone so that I can send dial pulses for the FIOS box to recognize.  Is there something I should be doing?  I did notice that the switch contacts on the older dial work in an isolated SPST method of two separate sets of contacts where the #6 dial has a SPDT contact with a common.  Any thoughts?  Thanks so much.

Darren.

GG

If a dial phone worked on an AT&T POTS line but isn't working with one of those newfangled VOIP-based phone services that some of us around here think are a travesty since they won't work during power failures (pardon the editorializing:-) ....then it's almost a 100% certainty that this is because the VOIP-based service is using an ATA (analog terminal adapter) that does not recognize rotary dial pulses.

The way to check is to get a known-good dial phone and put it on the line and see if it does or doesn't work.  

How to fix this:  You could install a Panasonic PBX, which automatically converts dial pulses to tones (and will enable you to hook up a bunch of rotary phones and have intercom service and transfer calls between them).   Or you could get a Rotatone converter that just does pulse-to-tone conversion (the latter are available from OldPhoneWorks).  However the Rotatone is looking for normal line voltage & current levels, so it may not work reliably on the lower voltage & current provided by some ATAs.  The most reliable solution is to ditch the VOIP-based service and get a good old analog POTS line connected, which will work during power failures, an important consideration in any area that's subject to natural disasters.

DarrenWGaransi

I actually don't have an issue with the ATA recognizing dial pulse-it actually does-from all of my rotary telephones with the exception of the one with the 5H dial. The rest of them work fine.  I have substituted another 5H dial and the issue is replicated.  It's definately something about this dial-even though it worked fine on POTS.


Phonesrfun

Well, the ATA's of the world are not all created equal, and they are definitely not engineered to the same degree of compliance that the phone company's central offices are.

Therefore, there may not be much tolerance in the ATA to variations in the dial.  POTS lines are very forgiving, since dials over the years are mechanical and will vary a lot.

Variations are:

Speed
Make/Break ratio
Waveform

Make/Break ratio is the ratio of the on versus off pulsing of the dial, and some ATA's are not very tolerant or programmed very well. 

The waveform of an electronic pulse dial phone would probably be nearly a perfect square wave, and that might be the basis on wha t the ATA was programmed for, as opposed to a legacy phone.

On the legacy phone, there are inductors and capacitors in the dial circuit which introduce an uneven square wave, which may fool the ATA.

If the number 6 and number 5 dials are connected the same, they should not make any difference.  You mentioned wiring one differently.  Can you post pictures of the back of the two dials?

-Bill G

GG



In which case I'm going to guess that the capacitor in the 302 is an issue because it's doing something to the waveform of the pulse train.  It may be that a larger or smaller value of capacitor, or a different way of wiring it, is needed to make this work.  (In my experience #6 and #7 dials are so stable that it can't be the dial speed or make/break ratio.)

As far as I know, this is a whole new area of research here: nobody has yet mapped out this issue, so whatever we'all come up with that works, should be documented and published:  "Compatibility fix: WE 302 with (whatever-brand-it-is) ATA on (whatever-company-it-is) VOIP service." 

Work on this methodically and take notes.   If/when you find a value of capacitor that works, try substituting other values that are slightly above and below it, so there is some leeway for people to buy parts.  If you find a way to do this with a wiring change, check for impact on transmission volume and sidetone volume, and document that too. 

Whatever turns out to work for you, will probably also work for many other people with similar situations. 

DarrenWGaransi

Hi, thanks for the information but I have to point out that the issue is actually only with a 5H dial.  I have taken the number 6 dial from one of the other phones and substituted the 5H dial with it-no problems there with breaking the dial-tone.  There's something about that 5H dial.  I know the capactior isn't the issue because I am able to replicate the problem in my 354 wall phone.

Phonesrfun

Can you take a picture of the switch contacts on the back of the 5H?  I am curious as to what makes it different.
-Bill G

GG


Darren-  Sorry, my mistake; I thought you said that the #6 dial was giving you the same trouble as the 5H.  All of my comments were based on that being the case, but apparently I misinterpreted what you said. 

Phonesrfun

Followup:

There should be no difference between a 5H dial and a 6A dial either in the switch pile-up or in how they are wired.  The differences between a 354 and a 302 wiring of the dial are:


  • The slate/red wire that goes to the network on a 354 connects to RR on the network instead of L1 in the 302
  • The 354 has the additional hookswitch connection that goes to the dial on terminal R

I guess I would check the wiring again.

To summarize, on a 354 dial the connections should be:

W to the white wire to the handset
Y to the brown/yellow wire going to the hookswitch
BK to the black handset wire, and the black wire from the 195A capacitor
BB to the brown/blue wire going to the hookswitch
R to a slate/red wire that connects to RR on the network, and a slate/red wire from the hookswitch

-Bill G

DarrenWGaransi

Hello again,

I was able to identify the issue!
Thanks so much for the information and the wiring legend.  The dial was actually connected correctly.  The issue actually was with the speed of the dial. 

With the other phone, the dial would break dial tone but dial incorrectly until I sprayed the governor with PTFE. 

With this phone, there was no breaking of dial-tone at all which led me to believe there was another problem.  I didn't realize that the ATA (Motorola ONT1000GJ4) actually listens for the first number dialed and THEN breaks dial tone.  If the number of pulses aren't correct, the dial tone will remain.  I caught on to this when I dialled the "1" and dial tone stopped but no so with any of the other numbers.  I adjusted the set-screw on the governor and then sprayed with PTFE.  Now everything is fine.  The 5H dial is right on the money-no dialling errors at all.  Initially I had the dial pulsing too quickly and this didn't work either ( I actually created some bell-tinkle-I guess I was pulsing around 20hz). 
I'm pretty impressed with the Motorola ATA-it does a great job of making more than 5 phones with a REN of 1 ring at the same time.  It also provides the cable and internet from the fiber-optic line....all that and recognition of my rotary phones.  The unlimited long distance isn't bad either.  The only thing I've lost really is the fact that I now have to dial 10 digits on the FIOS system, even for calls in my area-code but I figured that would happen sooner or later even with regular POTS.  The other thing I noticed is that the 958 number doesn't work any longer for own number identification and the 551-XXXX ringback number isn't valid; other than that, I'm pretty satisfied.