I have seen many Western Electric B1 & D1 restored phones being restored and sold on the net. Many are attached to subsets, some have a small network inside the base, and some have no network at all.
Is it ok to hook up these type of phones DIRECTLY to telco line with no subsets or network. I have seen some sellers on ebay that say it is ok and the phone will work fine. I was told way back that the line currrent would eventually burn out the receiver and the transmitter?
Telstar:
They really must have either a subset or a modern mini network built inside the base. Can it be done without? Yes, but you'd need to make a few wiring changes anyway. Should it be done? NO.
The 102 and 202 a.k.a. the "B" and "D" handset mount consists of only the hookswitch, dial switches, and handset. It needs the coil and capacitor which are in the subset. Otherwise, you risk damaging the receiver and transmitter elements in the handset, and preformance is really crappy without a subset.