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The Steepletone "Rotarepo" STP1960...

Started by twocvbloke, January 05, 2012, 02:39:23 PM

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twocvbloke

I'd say it's B, after all, there wouldn't be a website dedicated to their errors if they actually employed anyone who knew how to spell in English... :D

http://engrishfunny.failblog.org/

;D

I just think that they took the "0 Operator" bit off a proper WE dial, and just flipped it horizontally and then reversed the letters, rather than correcting their positioning... ???

Adam

#31
Because they added a * and # to the rotary dial, that shifted where everything on the dial ended up, and "OPERATOR" ended up on the left side of the dial instead of the right side.

But, they emulated the original dial where the word, being on the right side of the dial, starts at the lower part of the dial ring and moves up the dial as the word reads from left to right.

When the Chinese moved the word to the left side of the dial, they saw the word on the original started from the lower part of the dial ring to the upper part, and did it the same way, even though it now appears to English speaking people as the word is reading from right to left.

Makes sense to me. :-)
Adam Forrest
Los Angeles Telephone - A proud part of the global C*Net System
C*Net 1-383-4820

twocvbloke

At least it gives us something to laugh about, Rotarepo, the repo co. with a fast turnaround...  ;D

Babybearjs

WOW! great pictures, I saw this on ebay, thanks for Disecting the phone... the pictures sure help in understanding imports... this is one I'll stay away from.... that is if I ever see one in person.....
John

twocvbloke

Thanks, I like dismantling things, most of what I own has been taken apart at some point, cos I'm just curious to see their innards... :D

Looking at the thing, there's allsorts I'd do to make it a bit better than it is, like adding real bells, changing the handset cable for something a little less tight (trying to stretch that out is pretty tough, it's got one heck of a recoil on it!!!), shaving plastic off the hookswitch hooks inside the phone so the handset doesn't rock (I may just do that anyway, it doesn't look good all wonky like it is), replace the line cord with something a bit longer and more substantial (it's really thin and barely held in the plugs at either end)... :-\

But at the end of the day, no matter how much it's "polished", it's still a number two at the end of the day, the more I look at it, the more I want to take it out back and put it out of it's misery... :D

Owain

Quote from: twocvbloke on January 20, 2012, 08:08:38 AM
But at the end of the day, no matter how much it's "polished", it's still a number two at the end of the day, the more I look at it, the more I want to take it out back and put it out of it's misery... :D

As I forget who said, "You can't polish a turd, but you can cover it in glitter"

The alternative would be to try and reconstruct the dial wheel and opto-sensors inside a 'proper' telephone.

Maybe instead of blowing up Smarties you could blow up the telephone
http://www.bigclive.com/smarties.htm


twocvbloke

The thought of explosives has crossed my mind...  :D

I don't think I'd bother trying to shoehorn the dial into a proper phone, it would detract from the aesthetic value of the real one, and the fun part about a real phone is the fact that it's mechanical, not electronic, that makes me interested in it...  ;D

dsk

 :) Thank you, I have nearly bought this just to because of my curiosity.
Now I don't have to  :D
The idea of a switch built into the dial isn't new, I have a "rotary" intercom telephone from the 50ies. When you dial the dial switches between 10 contacts, and when hitting the fingerstop the ring signal is sent (battery connected to the right wire). The dial returns like normal.
dsk

twocvbloke

Yeah, I'd been thinking of buying one for some time (long before joining this forum) just to see what they're like, but they were either overpriced cos of people thinking they were something they're not (like, say, a GPO phone!!!), or cos I had other things to be paying for...  :D

Owain

I've just been stocking up on Teles (8) 782.

Maybe one day I'll get around to transplanting the dial pad into a House Exchange System (Keymaster)

twocvbloke

Now here's a thought, would the dial from one of those 756 and 782 phones fit in a 706's case? :D

McHeath

Okay an excellent review of this, the last of the rotary phones.  :)

I'm fond of these modern "rotarepo" faux phones.  Love love love the goofy mis-spelling of operator, it just really catches the weird charm of these misfits.  This one combines all sorts of interesting things:

The hookswitch attached to the shell is good ol' WE 302 territory.  In this case it's more like 5302, which is, in some respects, the first of these attempts to create a fake model 500.  I have an early 90's Pacific Bell labeled 2500 which had reverted to the hookswitch attached to the shell.

The ringer has been around since the early 80's at least as I have a Trimline clone from that era that I bought new that has one inside.  My Crosley replica 500 also uses the exact same ringer.  It's a magnetically driven unit that drives a bar plunger back and forth and gives off a fair ring.  Some people might like the ring better, I think it's okay but it's not a real harmonic and pleasing sound.  The gong appears to be brass on this Rotarepo model, it is brass on my old Trimline.

It has a network.  How quaint.  It's like buying a new car and finding a carburetor, points, and an oil bath air cleaner under the hood attached the computer.  My aforementioned Pac Bell 2500 does not have a network, there are a couple of chips attached to the bottom of the dial, that's it.

It has a steel baseplate.  Wow, metal, and in this day and age.  My Crosley 500 has a plastic baseplate, as does my Pac Bell 2500.

The dial is rather cool, in my opinion.  There appears to be a gear in there, another wow, and it's combined with some fancy light works to translate the spinning dial into touch tones.  My Crosley has buttons inset into the holes of the dial, it's just a push button phone with a faux dial, much like the old timey replicas that were created starting the late 70's. 

There are some design blunders.  The white under the dial is odd, seems a mistake to me.  The proportions are a bit off, enough to mess up the effect.  And of course what went wrong on operator? 

And so the rotary dial telephone still continues.  Cortelco quit making the last "real" rotary phones in 2006, but it seems you can't stop the dial.  Clearly there is a market for these replicas, I've seen the Crosleys in our local Target stores, and now someone in China has cooked up yet another. 

Here is my review of my Crosley:

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=1918.0






Owain

Quote from: twocvbloke on January 20, 2012, 09:25:16 PM
Now here's a thought, would the dial from one of those 756 and 782 phones fit in a 706's case? :D

Almost certainly in the later ones. Some of the very early models possibly not.

twocvbloke

Quote from: McHeath on January 21, 2012, 01:05:06 AM
Okay an excellent review of this, the last of the rotary phones.  :)

I'm fond of these modern "rotarepo" faux phones.  Love love love the goofy mis-spelling of operator, it just really catches the weird charm of these misfits.  This one combines all sorts of interesting things

Personally I prefer replicas that have been done properly, like how you get replica phasers based on Star Trek props (yeah, I have a Phaser... :P ), they're not the same as the original props, they're better quality and actually "work" (shame they don't work at stunning people, cos that'd be handy!!!) with lights & sounds, but, this Steepletone phone, it looks like the real deal, until you look at it closely and you find it's nowhere near the quality the originals were... :(

Anyways, comparing your Crosley to the Steepletone, I'd say they came from the same factory, cos the case moulding looks identical, as mine has the RJ11 jack socket space in place, but filled in, and the same hookswitch assembly (bar a different switch & mount), and you could probably even transplant the dial from the Steepletone into your Crosley too as they mount in the exact same way (whether you got it to work or not is a different matter!!)... :)

And yeah, the dial doesn't look right colourwise (aside from the Goji Berry Red colour!!), the letters & numbers should be white, not black, and behind the fingerwheel, yep, should be red, not white, but I guess that's what makes 'em unique...  :-\

I didn't weigh it though, but it's a lot lighter than my red WE500, and lighter still than my black WE500 too, the handset is heavy due to it's lead weights, but if they weren't there I doubt it'd be heavy enough to depress the hookswitch... :D

twocvbloke

Quote from: Owain on January 21, 2012, 10:28:47 AMAlmost certainly in the later ones. Some of the very early models possibly not.

hehe, kind of makes me wonder if the GPO ever modified any 706 phones with a keypad just to use up leftover stock... :D