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a 706 replica from India

Started by gpo706, March 27, 2011, 11:34:18 AM

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gpo706

Amazing, its like a slightly chubby 706.

I knew ITI made 300 series bakelites from rather hashed about ex-GPO moulds, but this looks like a brand new casting, look how they obviously tried to capture the design but made up bits as they go along, its quite an interesting curio:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ANTIQUE-VINTAGE-LOOK-ROTARY-DIAL-PHONE-TELEPHONE-/260757065456?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cb6550ef0

Wonder what those three clear apertures are for on the case?

"now this should take five minutes, where's me screwdriver went now..?"

Tom B

Interesting definitely - I like the clear plungers :D
Tom

GG



I have an older black ITI phone that was "indigenous" to India rather than their version of a GPO 332.  It uses the same dial and the same handset as the ITI version of the 706.   Both the handset and line cords come out of the side of that phone. 

The clear apertures on the case: probably plastic inserts to fill those holes when the holes are not occupied by pushbutton switches for 2-line operation, secretary/chief operation, or intercom keys. 

If anyone around here scores that phone, it would be interesting to see a complete set of pictures including the internals. 

ITI generally is pretty high quality, at least from the example I have.  It's slightly overbuilt in a manner similar to English phones.  The dial was way slow (as in, something like 7 pulses per second) so I very carefully disassembled it and tightened the governor spring.  Disassembling that dial requires expertise and care: it is more difficult to work on than your usual AE dials or GPO trigger dials. 

The receiver is based on the "rocking armature" design used by GPO, that provides mechanical amplification so it's loud and clear. 

The ringer gongs on my earlier model have the same tone as on GPO 706. 

At risk of sounding heretical, I think the hookswitch plungers on ITI's 706 are a bit of an improvement on the GPO 706 design, and would coincide with the housing being mounted to the base in the traditional manner with screws through the base (rather than the GPO method, which IMHO was a bit of a kludge on an otherwise excellent design for a phone).

Where ITI kinda' missed the mark on their 706 was by not having some kind of extended number ring or just a design element to suggest an extended circle around the dial: it makes the dial look small relative to the housing, and leaves the whole thing looking as if it's "missing" something (which compared to the GPO version, it is, namely the extended number ring). 

BTW, Israel also made its own version of the 706, that's almost identical to the GPO version.  I haven't seen enough good photos of that one to tell if/what the differences may be.  TelRad was an Israeli company making digital PBXs that were sold in the US for a while, and the phones for that system were impressively over-built, like military spec, which makes sense given Israel's security situation being geographically surrounded by adversaries. 

Now speaking of international politics: given that Pakistan began its existence as a state or province within India, thus having British/Indian influences, but then split off as a separate country with hostility to India and allegiances with the Muslim world:  what types of phones do you think you'd find in Pakistan?  I'm going to guess they eventually went Ericsson since Ericsson was highly active in the Muslim countries in the Middle East.  Does anyone here know?




Owain

Quote from: GG on March 28, 2011, 07:51:38 AM
Now speaking of international politics: given that Pakistan began its existence as a state or province within India, thus having British/Indian influences, but then split off as a separate country with hostility to India and allegiances with the Muslim world:  what types of phones do you think you'd find in Pakistan?  I'm going to guess they eventually went Ericsson since Ericsson was highly active in the Muslim countries in the Middle East.  Does anyone here know?


A quick search of google images brings up nothing. I suppose we'll have to wait until Ebay Pakistan opens up.

LarryInMichigan

I have an Israeli Telrad 706 (which I won an ebay for $5 plus a whole $15 for shipping).  I do not have a British 706 for comparison, but it looks just like the pictures.  I do have a GPO 746, and the handsets of the two look identical.

Larry

gpo706

#5
Larry, the cradle "ribs" from front to back are a lot fatter on this casing, and even at the rear you have the carrying shelf, which 706's don't have, but was incorporated on the 746 casing.

In fact its such a flaw in the design of the 706 that they introduced flimsy (very thin and flimsy) plastic straps across the retaining screws, which are under the handset plungers.

They even started cranking them out with decent chrome carrying handles to replace the original chrome fixing lugs or the pathetic plastic carrying bars.

The most obvious difference is the clear slitted plungers and the dial, which roughly points this 1 at the digit 2 on an original GPO set.

Now I'm actually wondering if this is meant to be a repro or maybe a standard issue Indian reworking?

- DOH It's obviouly a repro, the sellers other listings are all Indian made repro's!

I rather like the ships telegraph they have though, rather on the petite side though!
"now this should take five minutes, where's me screwdriver went now..?"

GG

#6

It's not a repro, it's a "real one" that was standard issue, or it's a counterfeit of a real ITI phone. 

Look at the last photo, in the center of the carrying grip between the two clear hookswitch plungers, and you will see the ITI logo.  Indian Telephone Industries, a major manufacturer for India Post & Telegraph. 

ITI made the Indian 332s, the odd Indian phone I have (photos, some day), and so on.  There were other examples of the ITI 706 on Ebay a year or two back, in various faded & used condition, as they would have come out of service. 

The fact that the seller is also offering various (IMHO nasty) repros & "antique look" dial phones and similar "stuff" doesn't mean the 706 was a fake. 

Here's some info on ITI phones in general:
http://www.bobsoldphones.net/Pages/ITI/ITI%20332s.htm

Briefly, ITI started in 1948, and manufactured its own variant of the 332 to suit local needs.  These were built to a high standard and made in some nice colors as well as black.  Subsequently, another company produced "counterfeit" ITI 332s either using ITI molds or their own molds, and cheaper components.  ITI and "fake ITI" phones found their way to dealers, who then sold them unknowingly or knowingly as English 332s.  Occasionally there were unscrupulous dealers who tried to sell them as English 332s at the prices for English 332s. 

Most English and American buyers had no idea of the actual history of ITI and the fact that 332s were produced in a bunch of countries (including Portugal: Centrel AEP) so a certain amount of bad feeling arose around all of this. 

Most of it was probably due to the fact that people were buying and selling stuff they didn't fully understand.  Some of it was probably cultural prejudice along the lines that India was a "third world" country so its technology "had to" be "less than" Western tech (despite the fact that real ITI equipment was high quality) (not to mention that India is a world-leading country in mathematics and certainly holds its own in computer science).  But in any case, real Indian telephone equipment is the equal of most English & European equipment of same vintage, and certainly deserves to be included in whatever historic collections seek to represent global telephony.  And if anyone around here has an ITI 332 in color for a decent price, feel free to message me. 

migette

Hi  Would I be correct in thinking that the TV program Deal or No Deal uses one of these iti 300 type the feet tend to give it away,

migette

 Hi I have watched this item for a while, sent questions to the seller, who appeared to know little about the phone, re who made it,though the iti name appears on the dial. I looked up iti phones on this forum and was very surprised to see it had been written about with answers to my questions. As it was still there I bid and was the only bidder, postage high which is normal but off set by the phone price. When I get it I will give a write up with photos, and find out what the led is for and the other buttons on top,I assume the transmitter and receiver will be like the UK version and dial AE copy. Hoping this comes up to expectations and another example from another country.     Peter

GG



The dial on that phone has a mechanism more closely resembling WE #6 and in no way resembling AE.  It uses a slow-speed flywheel governor with a clutch spring, and the WE type impulse cam mechanism.  The example I have with that dial is in good enough condition to not have suffered any substantial wear, but the dial was running slow: about 8 pulses per second even correcting for the extra space between 1 and 0.  I took the dial apart and adjusted it to 10 pps, but I would not recommend attempting that unless you've taken apart a lot of dials in your day.   

To get the plastic number label protector off, use a suction cup, same as for UK dials, though there is a tiny hole that will enable you to insert a paper clip and pry (gently!) one of the three legs holding the plastic protector to the fingerwheel. 

The receiver is very similar to the UK "rocking armature receivers" found in the handsets on 706s and later.  I don't recall for certain but I'm pretty sure the transmitter is similar to the UK type as well (I'm confusing it with Australia PMG transmitters, I'm sure). 

It'll be interesting to see what design they use for ringers and so on. 

I'll bet the red LED lights when the phone rings and thus can be used for message waiting service by applying 90 volts at 100 Hz. across the line (don't use AC mains current for this or you'll blow it up).

If you don't see any varistors in the phone or across the receiver, I'd strongly recommend going to Radio Snack and getting a pack of 1N914 diodes; they are cheap, and can be used (wired back to back) as a quickie varistor across receivers, thereby protecting them from mechanical damage due to acoustic shock (such as the clicks from switching transients).   Put the diodes across the receiver terminals before hooking the phone up to a CO or PBX line.  (Let's assume you have a receiver in front of you: wire one diode such that its little polarity band faces to the left, and the other diode such that its polarity band faces to the right.  You can do this across the receiver itself or across the terminals in the phone where the relevant leads from the handset cord are connected.)   

migette

Hi have just received this from India and it's worthy of a few pics and comments which will follow very soon. It is a genuine item with some surprises but more about that later. What I would say this seller has listed another and it would make a welcome addition to any collection, in my opinion they have NEVER been used and  are dated  1990 made by ITI  and at sometime been converted from pabx working to straight line, more later     Peter

migette

Hi got the pics ready, as we all thought this is the real mcoy and not fake or re pro. Looking at the innards it would appear that this was for connection to a PBX or PABX as the picture shows some wires have been cut and the switches which were operated by the 3 buttons lettered bell off  exch  bell dc have been removed. The LED was also used but not anymore. It appears that at some time these were modified as single line working for residential purposes, the cct diagram shows the full schematic. Also this phone arrived in what looks like the original box and packing and ' brand new'  NOS. The seller has more of these and I would think these probably came from a factory clearance. The quality is quite good. The only poor thing, not a fault of the phone, was a back to back electrolytic capacitor which caused bell tinkle when dialing, this was changed to a normal 2MFD and now no tinkle. It was interesting to see the dial which like GG said resembled the WE design and not like the older 332 version which was based on the AE dial, as AE set the company up in the 40s, on closer looking the dial is made in Japan and looks like new. The transmitter is like the British Top Hat carbon granule and receiver is the Rocking Armature type which was used in the 706 and 746. The base is plastic dated 1990.

GG



Nice!  Thanks for posting those pictures. 

Anyone wanting to use this in the US or on a Panasonic PBX, don't use a 2.0 microfarad capacitor, use 1.0 at most and 0.5 would be better, otherwise your ringer impedance will be too low (ringer equivalence too high). 

Three baseplate screws: similar to Dutch Standard Electric, which in no other way resembles any of the Indian or English phones.

Too bad they removed those auxiliary switch contacts, but if someone had too much time on their hands, they could probably build up something using lever operated microswitches.  Otherwise, I wonder if GPO plastic blanking plugs would fit the holes in the housing? 

Something to watch out for: reactions between the plastic cord grommets and the plastic base.  Ericsson's version of GPO-706, and RWT (Poland) each had the problem whereby a chemical reaction occurs that slowly melts the baseplate plastic around the cord retainer.  I don't know if that's a problem with these phones but if they're NOS you could tell by looking around the place where the cord enters the baseplate.  And I don't know of a cure for this but I'd sure like to find one.