Monophone Not Ringing

[skewedreality04]

Hi Everyone,

I am moving out next week and am wanting to decorate my apartment with a 1940's type theme. I picked up this beautiful black phone last week which I believe might be from that time era. The phone works wonderfully, but my only problem is that it won't right. I looked inside the phone and it says SL which I believe stands for straight line. Any idea on what I need to do to get this thing to start ringing? According to my research it just may need to be rewired. Any help you guys can give me will be great. Thanks in advanced.

[LarryInMichigan]

Welcome to the forum   Your phone is an Automatic Electric AE80.  It is one of the earlier models and probably dates to around 1960.  There is probably a date code on the bottom.  I think that these phones first appeared around 1959.  If you want a 1940s feel (in an AE phone), you will want an AE40.

Your ringer does look like a straight line (SL) ringer, so you should be able to make it ring.  Chances are that one wire from the ringer  is connected to the "G" terminal.  Move it to "L2", and your ringer will probably work.

Larry

[skewedreality04]

Thanks for getting back so soon. I have looked at the g wires and i have two of them, one is connected to L2 and one is connected to 16. L2 is right next to the letter g, so if I am correct it looks like everything is wired the way you said it should be. Someone mentioned to me that there is a chance that the transformer could be bad. Any way to tell?

[Phonesrfun]

Welcome to the forum

In a phone, the transformer is called an induction coil, and they almost never go bad, and even if it had gone bad it would not cause the ringer to not ring, since the two functions are entirely separate.

There are several AE experts here, but I'll take a shot and suggest that the black wire that is currently connected to G on the network block be moved to L2.  I believe that is the wire Larry was referring to.

[skewedreality04]

Thanks so much for trying to help. I currently have the green and the white wire connected to L2, will that fit onto of those or should I move one of those somewhere else?

[LarryInMichigan]

I am not an AE expert, but it was quite common for one side of phone ringers to be connected to the yellow line wire.  Move the black wire which is connected to the "G" terminal to L2 (one terminal over to the left).  You will then have three wires connected to the same terminal.  Alternately, you can connect the yellow to the green wire on the other end of the line cord.

Larry

[skewedreality04]

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! Not only did you solve the problem of the ringer not working you also solved other minor static noise that I heard when I picked the phone up for a dial tone!!!! I can't thank you enough!!!!!

[Phonesrfun]

Good Job, and Merry Christmas.