North Galion...what is this bell?

[Gilas]

I opened up a North Galion the other day and didn't find the SL or even frequency ringer.  Instead I was greeted by this...  So my question is what the heck is the purpose.

[twocvbloke]

At a guess, it's a ringy dingy pingy thingy....

Probably just a non-standard ringer, or someone's personal home bodge-job to get a ringer in it...

[G-Man]

MC-131 ringer used primarily in EE-8 Army field telephones.  The ringer coils have a combined resistance of 1,300-ohms so it has a high ren rating.

Does it look to be factory installed?

They were temporarily used right after the war in some civilian telephone sets due to manufacturing shortages caused by an unprecedented demand for telephone service. 

I seem to recall Federal Telephone also supplying sets to the Bell System with these ringers.

[HarrySmith]

It appears that the wires from the ringer are just stripped and stuck under the screws. I don't think any telco or refurbisher would do that. My guess is home brewed.

[paul-f]

I replaced several of these in North sets acquired on a trip through Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota about 10 years ago.  Apparently at least one small local telephone company in that area installed them regularly.

[LarryInMichigan]

If I were to guess, I would guess that the local independent  telco moved these phones from party line to single-subscriber lines and therefore needed to replace the frequency ringers and that they had a surplus of these ringers to use.

Larry

[Gilas]

Thanks for all the replies.  I haven't had a chance to mess with it too much inside...is this going to work or do I need to get a new ringer system?

[LarryInMichigan]

It will probably work, but you might want to add a resistor in series with it.

Larry

[Gilas]

Ok finally got some time to play with this and found that while the ringer does work, odd sounding by the way but cool, I can't get a dial tone on the phone.  Handset can be off and the phone rings great however lol.  Anyone have any clue or helpful hints.  First Galion.  Tried following the schematic but no go so far.

Mike

[LarryInMichigan]

Make sure that the contacts in the hook switch are clean and closing properly when the the handset is removed.  I just recently had that problem with a North hook switch.  In my case, the phone was off hook, and the transmitter worked, but the receiver was disconnected because the hook switch didn't close properly.

Larry

[poplar1]

Try temporarily putting
the white (receiver) handset lead on GN of the induction coil,
red (common) handset lead on R of induction coil,
black (transmitter) handset lead and black condenser lead both on YL2.
This bypasses the dial pulse and hookswitch.

[dsk]

MC-131 ringer used primarily in EE-8 Army field telephones.  The ringer coils have a combined resistance of 1,300-ohms so it has a high ren rating.

Does it look to be factory installed?

They were temporarily used right after the war in some civilian telephone sets due to manufacturing shortages caused by an unprecedented demand for telephone service. 

I seem to recall Federal Telephone also supplying sets to the Bell System with these ringers.

MC-131 are reliable ringers, but of course, a single gong has a different sound. On the other hand the big size gong gives a loud signal.

dsk