Classic Rotary Phones Forum

Telephone Talk => Forum News => New Member Introductions => Topic started by: twocvbloke on December 13, 2011, 01:16:53 PM

Title: New guy says hi... twocvbloke
Post by: twocvbloke on December 13, 2011, 01:16:53 PM
As per the title, hi!!!  ;D

I'm twocvbloke, also known in reality as David (not Dave, I don't own a dirty-white van!!), I found this forum on Sunday after looking for some info on what goes on under the hood of my WE500DM, and what the what is with the conversion described on British Telephones' website for use on British phone lines (apparently it cuts out the capacitor in the Network 425B, and then adds a resistor to up the ringer resistance to 4kOhm), but reading through the forum, there's loads more info to be learned about american phones, something we in the UK haven't had as standard...  ;D

The rotary dial phones I currently own are the aforementiond Western Electric 500DM, a pair of basic GPO 746 phones (one Cream/Faded ivory, one 2-tone Green with the original smooth handset cradle (as opposed to the stepped one of later 746 models)), and a TMC Limited (Pye) Linesman phone 1705 (identical to the GPO Linesman telephone 704A)...  :)

I also have some other non-rotary phones, Three BT Viscount phones (Basic Red Pulse-Dial model, Grey Tone dial, and a Cream Pulse-dial Speakerphone model), a BT Linemsan phone 286A (made by Hosiden Besson Ltd, fitted with a G-type handset with Mute button fitted), a BT-Nortel Meridian Compact phone system with a lone M7310n systemphone (no ATAs or other terminals), and a load of 1990's mostly Motorola mobile phones (most GSM digital, so still work to an extent), which I need to dig out and sort through... :)

I also collect vacuum cleaners, I currently have 15 & 1/2 of them, 7.5 of them being Kirbys, but that's for another thread I guess...  :D
Title: Re: New guy says hi...
Post by: AE_Collector on December 13, 2011, 01:40:25 PM
Hi there David and welcome to the Rotary Forum! You managed to make it past Dennis and become a new member here. We were just discussing the number of applications that Dennis has to wade through to get a REAL New Member here.

Where are you in the UK? We have numerous members from the UK on here regularly. I'm in Vancouver Canada.

Terry
Title: Re: New guy says hi...
Post by: twocvbloke on December 13, 2011, 01:48:17 PM
I'm in County Durham, in the north east of England, and it's rather windy here at the moment!!! :o

We just recently moved here, we were in East Lancashire up until the 20th November, so almost everything of mine is still in boxes, but most of the important things have been unpacked, like my vacs and phones...  ;D

When registering, I almost missed the instructions, but I found them not long after submitting my registration, so got through today... :)
Title: Re: New guy says hi...
Post by: AE_Collector on December 14, 2011, 12:43:49 AM
I remember being at Alnwick ...probably good we are talking here as we probably wouldn't be able to understand you otherwise! My last name is Biddlecombe so you can guess that my grandparents were from England. Tottenham. Moved to Canada around 1910ish.  I have a hard time imagining packing up and heading to the new world that long ago.

Terry
Title: Re: New guy says hi...
Post by: twocvbloke on December 14, 2011, 01:30:53 AM
Oh my accent is a lot easier to understand than either the Durham accent or Lancastrian accent, seeing how mine's a confusion of the two (mostly the better bits that are easier to understand), heck, I have a friend in Texas and he gets my accent pretty easily when watching some videos I've done on youtube & the like... ;D

We're a fair few miles south of Alnwick, sort of in between Durham city and Newcastle, plenty of accents round these parts!!! :D

I need to find my battery charger so I can get the AA's in my camera all juiced up to take pictures of my phones, trouble is, I haven't a clue which box I packed it up in...  ???
Title: Re: New guy says hi...
Post by: Phonesrfun on December 14, 2011, 01:47:50 AM
Welcome to the forum. I am in the US state of Wahington about 300 miles from Terry, although he could probably just about throw a rock from where he lives and have it land in Washington State.

Great forum here.  It's kind of hard to make out the accents via the type-written words, but sometimes the colloquial-isms show through.
Title: Re: New guy says hi...
Post by: Tom B on December 14, 2011, 02:31:46 AM
Welcome to the forum, Dave. I currently reside in Bury, in Lancashire. I'm sure you know the place. Here's some advice - run while you can ;)
Title: Re: New guy says hi...
Post by: dsk on December 14, 2011, 07:46:20 AM
Welcome David!

I'm living a little bit east of you  :D Hakadal, north of Oslo, Norway

If you have a WE 500 set, it may be wrong to use the 4k resistor.

Procedure; try with the 4k, if it works, its OK, if not just try without resistor.

The ringer has a total resistance of 3650 ohms, compered with older European ringers at 1000 ohms, this is high resistance.

dsk

Title: Re: New guy says hi...
Post by: AE_Collector on December 14, 2011, 11:35:40 AM
Quote from: Phonesrfun on December 14, 2011, 01:47:50 AM
Welcome to the forum. I am in the US state of Wahington about 300 miles from Terry, although he could probably just about throw a rock from where he lives and have it land in Washington State.

Bill: I don't even need to throw a rock at the moment, just open the window and drop it out. Maybe I'll try that with the cat. I'm at our cabin in Point Roberts, about 1000 feet south of the 49th parallel into Washington USA. Where I really live in Greater Vancouver we are about 16 to 18 miles North of the border.

Terry
Title: Re: New guy says hi...
Post by: Phonesrfun on December 14, 2011, 12:17:40 PM
Smuggling cats across the border, eh?

There should be a law....   :D
Title: Re: New guy says hi...
Post by: liteamorn on December 14, 2011, 12:21:06 PM
Welcome David,

Back in 1972 I was a Kirby Vacuum salesman! We sold the Kirby "Classic".
The spiel started out with "In the old days the idle rich had butlers around the house to do many of the odd jobs, well Kirby though of this and created a unit for the average family that does the butlers Job, we call this the Kirby "Handy Butler".".
Title: Re: New guy says hi...
Post by: twocvbloke on December 14, 2011, 01:25:35 PM
Thanks for the welcome, and the laugh with the cross-border humour between the US & Canada... :D

The WE500DM of mine is working as-is, on 2-wires, as opposed to the three that us brits have to use (even though these days, most modern electronical phones use 2-wires!!), the ringer is connected up to the L1 and L2 terminals on the network rather than I guess L1 or L2 and G, but I was reading and wondering about the conversion as described here:

http://www.britishtelephones.com/pstconv1.htm#non
(2nd to Last item)

I'm guessing they're assuming the person converting for UK use is using a UK-colours line cable for the conversion, but when you have a Modular-Converted WE500 (says "9-75 500DM" on the white label on the base), it kind of doesn't make much sense (at least, not to me!!), especially when it seems all I have to do is just poke an RJ11-to-BT line in the socket on the back of the phone, plug it in and it works, it just causes bell-tinkle on my GPO phones when I use it to dial...  ???

As for Bury, I've passed through it on a train once, but that's about it... :D
Title: Re: New guy says hi...
Post by: AE_Collector on December 14, 2011, 05:27:59 PM
Quote from: Phonesrfun on December 14, 2011, 12:17:40 PM
Smuggling cats across the border, eh?

There should be a law....   :D

We have had as many as 4 cats make the trip with us through the border but are a 1 cat family now. The border guards have really never had anything to say about the cats. Of course we tell them to keep quiet and not to admit to anything while talking to the customs people.

Terry
Title: Re: New guy says hi...
Post by: twocvbloke on December 14, 2011, 08:01:16 PM
Just thought I'd post a picture of my WE500DM, cos it looks great here...  ;D

Title: Re: New guy says hi...
Post by: HarrySmith on December 14, 2011, 08:12:00 PM
Hi Dave & welcome to the forum! You are correct, it does look good there! It also looks like you you collect lamps! I did not see a warning from anyone else so I will speak up; Keep those old phones seperated! They tend to multiply quickly ;D
Title: Re: New guy says hi...
Post by: Dennis Markham on December 14, 2011, 08:38:29 PM
Welcome David!  Nice phone.  That is a beautiful lamp.  That phone needs a dial card.
Title: Re: New guy says hi...
Post by: twocvbloke on December 14, 2011, 09:17:54 PM
Yeah, I'm working on making a custom dial label for it, made my own for my GPO 746 phones, I use pre-Adobe Macromedia Flash to do them (and print directly from Flash to get the best quality), got this made up for it so far (it's not finished, haven't got a working phone line yet so have yet to add the rest of the number):

(http://www.recycleabicycle.co.uk/pics/we500dm/dial%20label%20test.png)
(stored on my webspace, so unlikely to disappear any time soon!!)

I don't collect lamps myself, those are the mother's lamps, I use more practical lamps myself, though they seem to have been lost in the house move, plus I don't think I could ever afford that Tiffany-style lamp as it is...  :D

As for breeding phones, yeah, it happens, but it's all fun...  ;D
Title: Re: New guy says hi...
Post by: dpaynter1066 on December 15, 2011, 11:57:42 PM
Hi David, good to have you with us.