Western Electric 575 with 2-line switch

[Dan]

I wish to bring the "old bell sound" to my office but I have a few questions about this model.

When you switch the knob on the lower left from line to line, does the previous line go on hold or are they disconnected? I have a two line business and often use both lines simultaneously. Do any have a hold feature?

I see several 575's on Ebay but don't know specifically how they work.

Thanks in advance

[mienaichizu]

Hi Dan,

Im not sure if that switch will put you on hold but my experience with AE multi-line, it usually cuts the line to serve the other lines, so the phone serves only one line at a time. I think its only purpose is to give you a single deskset that can be hooked up with many lines, just to keep your desk clutter free of too many phones

[benhutcherson]

I don't have any experience with the 575, so I can't comment.

I might suggest, though, that you look into a 564, which is the key telephone version. It can be wired to work as a multi-line phone, and also has the ability to have a hold button. I'll have to look up how exactly to do it, but it should be fairly straight forward.

[Dan]

Thank you. I see one of these on Ebay with the line cut. I assume with the six buttons on the base five are for lines and one is a hold. Does this mean five lines are available?  I have a tone simulator so I am ready to go. Where would I be able to get a cord for it, and how difficult would it be to make it a two line phone with a hold? Thanks

[bingster]

I know next to nothing about key systems, so somebody please correct me if I'm wrong.  But I believe phones like this weren't just directly connected to the outside phone lines, but were instead connected to a special box that was hidden in a closet or back room somewhere in the office.  The box contained a lot of electronics, which included the device that allowed for the hold feature, caused the held lines to blink, etc.

They also should have a big honking plug at the end of the cord, which seems like it would be very difficult to replace.

[benhutcherson]

Yes, key systems do normally have a lot of control electronics. After looking at the schematics, it appears as though they are in fact necessary for hold to work.

A key telephone can, though, very easily be set up to work as a multi-line telephone. I'll have to post some pictures of how to do this, but it's relatively straight forward. I'm going to experiment, but I believe that I was wrong about the hold function working when used like this.

There is normally a 24 conductor(I think) cord, which has a corresponding 24-pin connector at the end of it. If I'm not mistaken, it's the same connector that was used not so long ago for parallel ports on printers.

In any case, I'm going to play around with my key phones some more and probably make a separate post about what I find. I do know that getting a dial tone with a regular phone line is relatively straight forward.

[Bill]

I think that a primitive hold function can be implemented by simply throwing a short across the line before you switch to the other line. This won't light a light, or cause one to flash, or play elevator music to the person on the other end. But it should fool the central office into thinking there is still an off-hook phone there, and thus convince it not to disconnect the line.

Bill

[mienaichizu]

you may also want to check this out

http://www.73.com/a/0118.shtml

its an AT&T 2500DMGL desk phone (scroll a bit down, to the left with a title REAL "GONG" RINGER in a yellow background)

it has a the "old bell sound" but a touch tone dial, it has a memory and hold functions, very reliable for office use but the only con is it is not a multi-line, I use one for my offce, try to check it out you might be interested

[Dan]

Thanks for the info, but I really want a 2 liner with a bell