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What would a person need to use a USA phone in the UK or Hong Kong?

Started by Karen, July 01, 2012, 05:55:35 PM

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Karen

Maybe the UK and HK use the same plugs and thats why she mentioned them together (?) but what all would need to be done to make a phone from here, work there.

Just an adapter? Do you know what kind?

G-Man

Quote from: Karen on July 01, 2012, 05:55:35 PM
Maybe the UK and HK use the same plugs and thats why she mentioned them together (?) but what all would need to be done to make a phone from here, work there.

Just an adapter? Do you know what kind?

What is the original context/question behind your query?

That said, here is an eBay auction for a UK adapter-

http://tinyurl.com/6sy9x5d

According to Wikipedia, the UK and Hong Kong both use either rj-11 or BS 6312 connectors.

http://tinyurl.com/mcljnr

http://tinyurl.com/3fd3we


TelePlay

For what it's worth, I bought a 1960 GPO 706 two months ago and it came with a British Telecom Plug and, according to the eBay UK description, was converted to work on the "new" British system.

Seems the red and green wire on the converted 706 were 2 and 5 on the BSP modular pug versus 3 and 4 on a US RJ-11. Twocvbloke gave me great instructions on how to rewire, to unconvert, the inside of the 706 to get it to work on a US POTS line. Jumpers and moving wires around were needed but the phone worked normally on a POTS line after following his instructions, using an RJ-11 plug with red and green on 3 and 4 being properly connected inside the phone.

To do this on a US phone to get it to work on a UK system is beyond my knowledge but remembering what I did to the 706 to get it to work here makes me think some rewiring of the 425 or other network and a British modular plug would be needed to convert a US phone for used overseas. Those small pill box adapters may be enough but don't know.

Hopefully twocvbloke can add to this in a few hours.

Karen

Well this is for a customer that was curious about whether the phones from here would work there. So Im just looking for adapter solutions I guess.

I emailed her about that one on ebay. 

Thanks!

twocvbloke

Personally, I just plug them in... :D

Okay, being serious now, all I use here in the UK is a 2-wire BT-to-RJ11 cable (generally a black one as they're easy to find) for modularised phones, and for hardwired phones, generally a GPO conversion cable does the job (White wires is Red, Red is Green, insulate the Blue & Green, sorted), or like with my NT2500, I wire a modular socked up inside the phone and connect up a BT-to-RJ11 within the phone and anchor it with the little tab by the bells... :)

Obviously, you need to make sure the bell wire is set in the right position and not on the G terminal, there is a conversion method for use on UK phone lines, but that kind of messes up the phone's internal wiring as it's made to work with fully-wired BT phones that suffer "Bell tinkle" (the bell "pinging" on every pulse of another phone's dial) with rotary phones, but in this day and age is unnecessary as most phones are 2-wire and have their own built in electronic ringing circuits, and I've not had any problems with my phones in 2-wire setup... :)