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AE Starlite does not ring

Started by Willytx, April 17, 2011, 12:03:18 AM

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AE_Collector

Hey you're welcome guys. Every once in awhile a subject comes up that I actually know a little bit about so I can add some info on here.

I thought that I had posted pictures in a thread on here showing the various Starlite changes over the years but of course I can't seem to find it at the moment.

Terry

stub

#16
Dennis Markham,
                Here's what you need to light up the other Starlite dials. I got these from a very ::) nice and  ::) generous collector!  ;D      stub
Kenneth Stubblefield

AE_Collector

Hey good front and back views Harry! You should have asked him for two of them so photographing them would be easier!

Thanks for the lifetime warranty on my Illuminating Starlite dials. You accept rail shipments there don't you? Transport by road in 18 wheelers is so much more expensive!

Terry

stub

#18
Terry,
        Harry ? No , that's my fat belly in that picture. The other plug is in use!  
         The rail left here several years ago.     stub
Kenneth Stubblefield

AE_Collector

Quote from: stub1953 on April 19, 2011, 01:07:41 AM
Terry,
        Harry ? No , that's my fat belly in that picture. The other plug is in use!     stub

Oops, sorry Ken. I've mixed you and Harry up before. Need to meet you both to end the confusion I guess!

Terry

stub

I'm gone before BDM gets after us ;D    stub
Kenneth Stubblefield

Willytx

Quote from: AE_collector on April 18, 2011, 09:46:20 PM
Willytx:

Your Starlite was originally set up to have illuminated dial as you can see that it has the 4 screws along one side of the baseplate. These were used as bunching points to connect the AC coming into the phone to the dial illumination wires. Notice that in stubs picture the base has the places for the screw terminals but the actual screws are not there.

However your phone has the non illuminating dial. Maybe it was swapped out at some time. You can easily tell a non illuminating dial by the absense of two extra black leads on the back OR just look at the number plate. If the letters are BELOW the number rather than ABOVE the number (like normal) then it is a non illuminating Starlite dial. I bet you hadn't noticed the odd number/letter configuration on your Starlite until I mentioned it!

Terry

Hi Terry,

I had wondered about those screws, but figured all the Starlites were built that way and only some were made to light. Interesting about the dial, just a quick glance and know if it lights up or not. I had noticed that the dial plate is opaque and wouldn't let much light through if there was a bulb inside. The position of letters and numbers hadn't ever occurred to me. Like I said somewhere else, we always lived in Bell territory, so AE phones are sort of foreign to me.

I am glad to know this Starlite isn't near as deadly as early models. 110VAC into the base wouldn't make it past legal these days.

Thanks to you Terry and everyone else helping me understand more about this nice little phone.

GG


Terry-

When I was a kid I noticed that those AE dials have the digits above the letters, and I figured it was just one more way that AE asserted its nonconformity with the prevailing WE standards.   

However, I don't recall having ever seen or heard of an AE Starlite (or Compact Wallphone) rotary dial with the digits below the letters WE-style, and this includes in photos in old AE docs I have.   Do you have actual examples like that?   (Or am I forgetting something obvious I'd seen once before?)

IMHO, for safety reasons, use a transformer.  Even if that means replacing the original lamp with a newer low-voltage one, or (gasp!) an LED.  AC mains voltage, even via dropping resistors, really doesn't belong in a phone.

English phones of GPO 706 and later vintages, with dials having digits under the fingerwheel (e.g. "newer" 706, as well as 746, 776, etc.) have a *very* clever arrangement where the paint that forms the background color of the number plate is designed to be mildly reflective in the manner of a subtle version of roadway stripes.  Thus in very low light, when staring right at it, you can see the numbers more clearly than on a conventional number plate.   That was one of those "gratuitous" design features that wasn't "necessary" but was nice and thoughtful, probably added nothing to the cost of manufacturing, and might even have saved a couple of lives in emergencies. 

Adam

I've posted about this on this forum before:

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=3933.msg51874#msg51874

I repeat that info here:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I didn't think I'd find anything relative to this in my big GTE Station Installation and Maintenance Handbook, but I did!  The past speculation of the numbers flipping in between the illuminated Starlite (AE 182A and AE 192A wall version) and the non-illuminated AE 182B and AE 192B seems not to be correct.

Quote from the aforementioned manual, in the document named "DIALS, FINGERWHEELS AND NUMBER CARDS", Issue 3, December, 1973:

"The GTE AE Type 54 dial, used on the Type 182A and 192A sets, is a 3-inch diameter dial, similar to the 51A, but equipped with a rectangular number plate and integral electroluminescent lamp.  The number plate of the Type 54 dial was revised in 1972 to reverse the positions of the letters and numerals, placing the numeral above the letters.  This change was made for better visibility of the numerals."

There you have it.  I'm still sort of amazed I found a reference to what we were talking about in this ridiculously big phone-book sized book.
Adam Forrest
Los Angeles Telephone - A proud part of the global C*Net System
C*Net 1-383-4820

t_bird

hey guys, new and very first post! I ran across this site looking for information on the very phone you guys were talking about ;D ok starlite and wont ring, can dial out be herd and also can be called and answer and be herd. tried the rewire as mentioned earlier in this thread and still no ring. i have a neighbour that worked for the telephone company years ago that looked at it and said that the ringer was setup for a party line @ 66&2/3 cycles per second. the reason he gave was when somebody dialed your number every phone on the party line didnt ring just yours. this seems to make logical sense (at least it does to me) so question is where do i start to fix? the coil for the ringer on mine only has two wires, red and black. I would really like to get this phone back to 100%. everything else works, grew up with rotary phones and without the bell it has lost almost all of its coolness factor ::) notice i said almost ;D i am sure i could install one of the newer ringers in it, but i just cant bring myself down to that level ::)

HarrySmith

You will need to replace the ringer with a straight line ringer. They are not difficult to find, someone here may have one.
Welcome to the forum :D
Harry Smith
ATCA 4434
TCI

"There is no try,
there is only
do or do not"

AE_Collector

Is the ringer in the base of the phone and does it have a single gong? The single gong ringers typically used in AE starlites were only ever straight line, no frquency ringers. However if it is in a seperate box outside of the phone housing it could very likely be a frequency ringer.

Terry

t_bird

yes it is in the base. by single gong I take it yoo mean one bell? if so then yes. it looks almost identical to the ones pictured earlier in this thread except where they have multipul wires, this one only has two. on the bell mine has the following info. Itt  HA3         CAP NO. on the first line and the following on the second line     66 2/3 CPS    .08  mf    knowing the history of the area where this phone was more than likley used when new may help. the area where this phone came from today has a population of approx 200 and a private telephone company to boot. so back when this phone was new who knows what they may have had it set up for....

dsk

A bit late, maybe, but if your telephone is connected to an ATA, you may be able to adjust the ringing frequency.

dsk