Early 500 sets at the flea market

[Dennis Markham]

Sorry, that's Adam's phone, not Georges.  Adam, it looks like the red wire may be touching the gong.

[paul-f]

Adam,  The 7A dial with early style dual injection molded number ring and C2A ringer are nice early 500-series features.

David,  Thanks for the background on Hallmark House.  A number of independent refurbishers bought housings and other components from Western Electric to convert 302s to 5302s.  Many took shortcuts, such as not buying or installing the ringer adjusters or the black dial plates.  Cutting corners helped improve their margins.

Paul,

     Thanks for your reply! I was inputting mine, invoking your name and site, even as you posted yours!

      I have great admiration for all you have done and contributed to the world of telephony collectors. I have spent endless hours perusing the site, in search of answers, which, thanks to you, I usually find.

     Am I to understand that there is a standing discount agreement between the CRPF and the TCI membership, or is this a once-in-a-while thing?

     Best regards, and a pleasure hearing from you, Sir!

Terrence

Thanks for the kind words, Terrence.

The TCI membership discount expired December 31 and no longer appears on the web site.  See Bill's reminder here:
   http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=7627.0

Bill may have an updated status, or you can email the membership chairman using the link on the TCI site here:
   http://www.telephonecollectors.org/member/member.htm

[AdamAnt316]

Long-awaited update:

Finally got around to testing these phones. The 500T seems to work as it should, though I haven't tested the ringer yet. The dial is a bit stiff; is there a known method for cleaning these 7A dials?

The 5302, however, seems to be a different story. There seems to be something amiss with the handset hook and/or dial. Picking up the phone after plugging it into the wall gives dial-tone in the receiver. However, turning the dial results merely in a click through the receiver. I thought it was the usual sluggish dial being unable to generate a rate of pulsing satisfactory for Verizon FiOS's pulse-to-tone converter, but as I was about to dial another digit, the intercept recording started up.

Putting the handset on-hook did nothing to stop the recording from continuing, and it eventually resulted in the reorder tone, then silence over the lines. Pressing down the hookswitch mutes the line noise, but apparently does nothing to actually hang up the phone. I'm guessing something's miswired somewhere, but I'm not exactly sure what it could be. Any ideas? Thanks in advance!
-Adam

[LarryInMichigan]

A quick and easy way to clean sticky dials is to give them a spraying with electrical contact cleaner.  A few drops of clock oil in the pivots (but avoiding the contacts) helps.

Hook switch assemblies can become sticky, and the electrical contacts can become dirty, so a spraying with contact cleaner there can also help.  Sliding a small piece of non-glossy paper (brown paper is good) between the hook switch contacts can help clean them.

Larry

[AdamAnt316]

I've cleaned out type 5 dials before, but not the type 7A as of yet. Not sure exactly how it differs from those, or the type 7 dials used in the rest of the 500 series.

I managed to figure out the 5302 issue on my own. Turns out that whoever wired it up didn't do a very good job of it. The red and green wires from the line cord were wired to the R and GN terminals of the 101A network! Used the 302 diagram on this very site to double-check the wiring, and found the discrepancy. Wired the line cord as it's supposed to be, and voila, the hookswitch and dial work just as they should.

Oddly, the red wire routed underneath the ringer gong was due to a blatant modification. The red wire from the ringer had been connected to the upper right terminal of the K terminal strip, and a short white/red striped wire had been wired between the makeshift ringer terminal, and L1 on the terminal strip. Methinks that it was done in a deliberate attempt to use the ringer wires to soften the tone of the ringer gong.
-Adam