Ericson Phone Does not work at all

[joey67]

I received Ericson phone last night, and it does not work at all.

I tried all different combinations of Blue, Red, Green, Yellow line wires but I get no dial tone.

here are more pictures to help. 

[Wallphone]

Joey, here are a few pics that I took of my Radio Shack version awhile back.
Doug Pav

[dsk]

Strap terminal 9 (Yellow) and 10 (green) to get the ringer working, connect line to terminal 10 and 11 (red).

dsk

[joey67]

 D S K
this didn't work ....

I hope I didn't buy a paper weight 

[joey67]

I have the tendency to get caught up in the difficult things when it is usually the simple thing.

Ohm meter to the rescue; the line cord was bad all the way from one end to the other. Everything works just fine now. thanks again everyone!

[LarryInMichigan]

Joey,

Is the line cord really bad, or is it a bad connection at the spade?  I have had a couple of cords which needed nothing more than a good squeeze on the spade crimp with a pliers.

Larry

[GG]

There are many of those Ericssons, and similar sets made in the Netherlands, that got into the US.  Radio Snack apparently made a deal with the Dutch PTT to buy out all their old sets in the 1970s.   These were sold at Radio Snack stores for $7.95 into the early 80s if I recall correctly.  There are still many of them in circulation in the US and they are almost as common as some US phones of the 302 era. 

There are two other versions:  Standard Electric (the hookswitch is a bar across the top of the cradle, and there are round PTT and Standard logos on little metal discs on the sides), and HEEMAF (the hookswitch buttons are rectangular with the HEEMAF logo in them)

All of these have identical wiring at their terminal strips in the rear.  The color code of wires from dial, handset, and line cord, match the colors of wires soldered to the terminals on the other side.  Ericsson and Standard Electric made nearly-identical-looking phones for other clients in Europe and around the world at the time, so their Dutch version was specific to the Dutch market.  I'm going to guess that the Dutch PTT required them to use the same standard, and that it was based on HEEMAF phones, these being indigenous to The Netherlands and not sold much to other clients at the time. 

The ones with the white button can be used to provide added features.  Originally it was a "recall register" button used in PBXs, as the equivalent of what we call a "flash" button today.  In a residential environment it can be used with DC buzzers or beepers to provide "common-signaling intercom" between phones: e.g. "one long beep means pick up the downstairs phone, two short beeps mean pick up the upstairs phone."  It can also be used with a latching relay to provide a "hold/transfer" function.  Or in a PBX environment it can be wired to a "flash module" (Mike Sandman's company sells these) for timed flash access to PBX features.

For the residential hold relay: either a) add resistors such that the relay will only operate when all phones are on hook (therefore to hold, press white button and hold it down while hanging up handset; to release, lift receiver), or b) use a relay that latches while handset is off-hook (to hold, press white button once and hang up; to release, lift receiver and dial 1 on any phone where the dial off-normal shorts the entire transmission circuit). 

If you hook these up in a house with other rotary phones, the bells will jingle when you dial from other phones.  This because the ringers were "non-biased."  The cure for that is a back-biased zener diode at 65 - 75 volts, instead of a strap between the ringer lead and the line lead.  Polarity of the line is critical for this to work. 

Yes me & my pals played with these extensively when they were current, and and sold them with the hold relays installed for residential use. 

[joey67]

The person I got it form said it came from Sweden (who knows) ... It is in spotless condition inside and out; almost as if it was not used. I was able to clean of that yellowish stuff off the center dial so it looks great now! 

My question is... is this a genuine article old phone or is it a retro reproduction thing, and how hold might it be. I love the look of it. I got it for my because  she was disappointed with the look of the WE 1955 desk set I got as my first rotary phone for a hobby. She was expecting something more like the Ericson. So she was very happy when I surprised her with it; by having it shipped with her name on the box. She called me at work right away after she saw it and was very exited about putting it in out bed room. In fact she asked if I would move the WE out from there and put it  some place else.

So I think I will put it on her desk where it should look nice.

[LarryInMichigan]

Joey,

Ericsson is a Swedish company, but they had divisions in various other places.  This phone was made in the Netherlands by Ericsson Rijen for the Dutch PTT which provided telephone service there.  The transmitters in these phones tend to be bad, but T1 transmitters can be substituted.

Larry

[GG]

Joey: as Larry said, that's a real one, not a repro.  These were in use in the 50s and 60s.  There were some subtle variations for other markets.  The Dutch Ericsson version you have, has both cords coming out the rear.   The PTT logo stands for Post, Telegraph, and Telephone: the Dutch post office telephone administration (per most European countries: the post office ran the telegraphs and telephones). 

The Swedish version, also exported to the US for use in Ericsson PAX/PBX systems, has both cords coming out the side, and a different component layout.  The basic shape was used by GEC and British Ericsson (search: GEC 1000), with the usual British trigger dial.  These were also used in the Middle East, where you'll see Arabic numerals under the holes in the fingerwheel, and conventional numbers in the area at the center of the fingerwheel.

They were also made in a limited range of other colors, the most common being ivory or white.   

Re. the transmitter: yes you can put a T1 in there, but with some difficulty at getting the center contact to line up correctly with the spring in the handset.  However, some of these are found with Philips transmitters, which are usually early 70s vintage and sound fine (look for the name Philips on it). 

Transmitters vary very widely and individually, so it's more likely that you got a good one, or that its worst flaw will be a little static that can be made to go away for a while by gently shaking the handset up & down during a conversation. 

[teka-bb]

Joey,

I can get you a replacement transmitter capsule and a numbercard holder. I can ship it to you but you could also wait until my next visit to the US which will be at the end of this year.