B1A ringer tonal quality

[Charles]

I have a metal shelled WE 302 phone with a B1A ringer.  With the shell removed the ringer has nice tonal quality. With the shell on it seems to muffle the gongs quite a bit. The hammer is hitting the gongs with sufficient force (although I tried moving the biasing spring adjustment and did not notice any difference). The best tonal quality is when the gongs are adjusted as shown in the attached picture. With the shell on it sounds somewhat like the bells are touching the metal cover (although they are not).

Does the fabric that covers the vent holes under gongs have anything to do with the muffling?
My goings are sitting straight on top of the ringer assembly (no type of washer/spacer between the gong and the ringer frame), should there be some type of spacer?

Thanks for any responses

[BDM]

Hi Charles, the fabric shouldn't, but the body of the phone will. I've noticed this on any 302 but especially metal 302s. The higher frequencies you hear with the body removed will be the first thing restricted (muffled) with the body back on. Now some may be more sensitive to this than others. Meaning some folks are either completely hard of hearing or partially tone deaf such as myself (I'm only slightly to higher tone frequencies).

P.S., I like to make sure the gongs are adjusted correctly. My way of doing this is with the clapper fully seated or fully held in the opposite direction, there should be about 1/16" (guessing without measuring them. I cannot look at one right now) between the clapper and gong. I tend to do this by eye now. But I find I get the best ring tone adjusting them in this manner. I'm sure there is a BSP out there for actual proper adjustment and one of the other members may post this.

[Charles]

I tried the adjustments but was not able to adjust the left gong to be 1/16" away from the clapper when it (the clapper) is in it's left most position. That being said, with the metal shell off, the ringer makes a beautiful high frequency multi tone ring.

I am tempted to take off the fabric vent cover to see if more of the sound comes out.

What is the purpose of the fabric cover?

[BDM]

Interesting on the adjustment. I've had some that required a little tweak of the clapper arm (at the armature position) to get it just right for adjustment of the gongs. That being said it doesn't look slightly bent, but lets way to see what others may have to say. The fabric was to keep out bugs and that does not look original. It should be a thin screen but in any event, I do not see this limiting any sound quality. The phone isn't exactly that well sealed. Someone painted the interior of the base. Did you purchase this restored?

[Charles]

Yes, I did purchase it restored.
The fabric cover is fairly thick.

[poplar1]

What type dial are you using--5H, 6A, or something else? Sometimes the wires will interfere with the moving parts of the ringer, but usually only with 6-type dials. Also wondering why there are two red wires on R of the induction coil--normally would be just the red handset wire there.

[Charles]

#6 Dial. Not sure about the wiring (that's the way it came).
See attached picture for dial.

[TelePlay]

What is the purpose of the fabric cover?

Mostly to keep dust, dirt and vermin out of the phone, mostly vermin and their subsequent nests, and to let ringer sound out the bottom.

Here are a couple of links to screen related topics I found using search on the forum. There may be others but this should help you out, or get you started in mesh and its attachment.

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=1950.msg26483#msg26483

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=5858.msg70313#msg70313

[poplar1]

#6 Dial. Not sure about the wiring (that's the way it came).
See attached picture for dial.

(This is a later dial such as 6L, 6T, 6U etc; that explains the modified wiring)

The red wire that is on BB may be causing the problem with the ringer. The wire should be exiting at a right angle to the contact springs, and the two black wires on BL (BK on a 6A dial) should also be at a right angle to the contact springs. So you  may want to loosen the screws long enough to dress the wires that way.

.....Another solution might be to add some spacers (such as hex nuts) between the base mounting screws and the housing. This will keep the baseplate (and ringer) further away from the dial once the phone is closed up.

[Charles]

Thanks to everyone for your responses.
Also
To poplar1:
It looks like the dial is a 6Q (must be one of the last #6 dials made).

To BDM:
I noticed that the armature on the ringer has 2 small posts (1 above each electro magnet). These posts appear to limit the travel of the armature in either direction.The post on the right side (which limits the travel of the clapper to the left gong) is worn way down so if I move the clapper all the way to the left it touches the gong no matter how I adjust the gong position (because the limit on the armature is worn down it moves more to the left). Your instructions would work otherwise. Hope that makes sense

[Phonesrfun]

If it rings well with the cover off, and is muted with the cover on, then I don't think it is a matter of the ringer needing adjustment in any way.   Moving the cover into position will usually result in the position of wires changing and possibly coming into contact with one or both of the ringer gongs, thus muting the ringer. 


The #6 dial protrudes down further into the phone than a #5.  What Poplar1 said is important.  The wires or the plastic cover over the switches on the dial may be coming into contact with the gongs.


Normally the fabric that covers the vent is a very thin material.  Someone may have replaced it with a thicker fabric along the way.  The original was a mesh material; almost see-through.  A thicker material would dampen the loudness, for sure, but not by much.


Wires or the dial cover touching the gongs of the ringer would cause the ringer to have a dull thud-like sound with no reverberation ringing for the split second after the ringing stops. 


If the problem were the fabric cover, then the crisp ringing would be there, but just at a lower volume.


Remember that when Bell Labs created the C4 ringer in the 500, they made a monumental improvement in ringer design and sound.  I always see people selling 302's on e-bay bragging about the ringing sound of an old B1A ringer.  I think that's kind of funny, since the 500 has a much better sounding ringer.  If you are used to a 500 and this is the first 302 for you, then the ringer is definitely going to sound disapointing compared to the C4 in a 500.

[Charles]

Bill,

You and poplar1 make perfect sense. I will check the clearances and reroute the wires. I will also try removing the dust cover off of the dial to see if that makes a difference (it appears to be fairly useless anyway).

Thanks

[poplar1]

6Q--or NE-6Q--is the Northern Telecom or Northern Electric equivalent of the WE 6T and 6U. It was part of the kit of parts used to complete the customer-owned decorator phones.

Details about using 6-type dials on 302s is included in BSP Section C34.103 Issue 1 or 2 in the TCI library. See paragraphs 10.01-10.02 and Figure 6. Even though the terminals are slightly different on a 6Q dial, the idea is the same--to make sure the wires don't interfere with the ringer.

10.01 refers to all 302s where 6-type dials are used:


   10.01  When 6-type dials are placed on H- and J-type mount-
             ings (300 series and 401 through 412 telephone sets),
proper cording procedures must be followed in order to avoid
interference with the ringer clapper rod by spade tips and
wiring to the dial. Connect the red-slate, and black wires to
dial terminals as shown in Fig. 6. Position the open side of
spade shank, where wire is clamped, toward the dial and bend
to give maximum clearance from the ringer. Make certain they
do not touch any other terminals or metal portions of the set.



10.02 actually refers only to the latest 302s (c. 1952-1954), where the ringer is attached with two screws to the steel ringer bracket.

  10.02  The terminals of the 6-type dial will obstruct the ringer
            clapper rod when the ringer is mounted on a steel
mounting bracket. These brackets can be identified by the
ringer being mounted under a lug and secured by two screws
between the gongs. To overcome this difficulty two captive
washers (P-14A100) shall be placed on each of the base plate
mounting screws. This allows the necessary clearance between
the mounting base and housing.

http://www.telephonecollectors.info/index.php/document-repository/doc_details/3338-c34-103-i2-station-dials-2-4-5-6-7-maintenance-tl

[Charles]

Wow that is a wealth of information. It appears that I have the earlier installation with a single screw holding the ringer to the base bracket.

So that being said, I should follow 10.01??

Also, you mentioned in an earlier post that I can use a spacer on the 2 mounting screws. By these you mean the 2 screws that attach the bottom base plate of the phone to the upper metal shell?

Thanks for your assistance

[poplar1]

Yes, you have the older (most common) ringer mount. However, reading between the lines you might infer that spacers between the baseplate and the housing may help, even though specifically mentioned only for phones with the later ringer mounts.

Eventually, you may wish to look for a 5H dial, which was the type used on most 302s.

Sorry I can't furnish the diagram here; my scanner keeps saying "check connection" even though I have reentered the SSID for the DSL gateway and it says it's OK. Perhaps someone else can post Figure 6 from the BSP?