BK Precision 1045/1050 Telephone Tester - Sightings!

[kleenax]

I have been wanting to ask this question forever..... what do you use these for?

I have been refurbing telephones for almost 40 years and have never needed anything besides another line....and spare parts. In the beginning I had two POTS lines. When we went to Comcast (we now have Verizon) I purchased a Panasonic 616. Still have it....runs like a champ. I bought a 308 as a back years ago at a yard sale...finally sold it. The 616 is great! Just keeps on running. I use it on my test bench and for my rotary phones to play in the world outside my home.

I am confident that when I refurb a phone and say it works...it works, unless the carrier does not support rotary dial.

What am I missing by not owning one of these?  This is a sincere question and not meant to be confrontational. ...thanks...Doug

Hey Doug;

The BK 1050 & 1045 basically can emulate a telephone line. You simply plug-in the phone that you want to test, and push the "RING" button. You can even plug-in a 2nd (working) phone (plugged into #2) and ring it to emulate calling another phone to mimic a "real" phone call from one of your phones to another. I even use mine to test my straight-line ringers. They will also test whether a dial is dialing a number correctly, and if a keypad is dialing correctly. The 1050 can even test the early "wireless" phones, but I have never had an occasion to use that ability.

[AE_Collector]

No doubt a Panasonic PBX or other type of equipment can confirm the functionality of most phones. It is probably just slightly quicker and easier to have the tester right in front of you on the bench. Being the original price of these units was so high I would suspect they are set to fairly tight tolerances. So while a PBX might process a call from a phone it could be that the same phone might not work on some other piece of switching equipment that had tighter tolerances. Theoretically a phone that passes the BK tester should likely work on any (most) other system. All my theories though....

Terry

[Jim Stettler]

With a 1045/1050 and radio shack tester you can test a modular telephone including cords in less than a minute.
The 1045's and the radio shack testers had a price of around $500 when new.

the 1050 looks cooler, it does everything a 1045 does plus it has a meter vs lights when you are testing transmission. The rest of the 1050 is for cordless phones. I think the new price was a lot higher than the 1045.
I prefer a 1045 over the 1050 as far as convenience .
JMO,
Jim S.

[dsk]

I have been wanting to ask this question forever..... what do you use these for?

I have been refurbing telephones for almost 40 years and have never needed anything besides another line....and spare parts. In the beginning I had two POTS lines. When we went to Comcast (we now have Verizon) I purchased a Panasonic 616. Still have it....runs like a champ. I bought a 308 as a back years ago at a yard sale...finally sold it. The 616 is great! Just keeps on running. I use it on my test bench and for my rotary phones to play in the world outside my home.

I am confident that when I refurb a phone and say it works...it works, unless the carrier does not support rotary dial.

What am I missing by not owning one of these?  This is a sincere question and not meant to be confrontational. ...thanks...Doug

Dough you are right about the most here, you are not missing much, I spent money on tester, and yes it makes it more easy to perform the tests, but for me it is more fun than without it. 
You may display the digits on the tester, but have to call different lines on the Panasonic. You are able to monitor what voltage needed to get ringer ringing with the tester, that is not possible with the Panasonic, you have to add components to test that on the Panasonic. The testers are still pretty much a go or not go tester. To calibrate a dial you need to have some equipment for analyzing the pulses, make break ratio, and speed.  This is easily done with free software and a the microphone input on the PC, or you may use dedicated instrument for that.   The drawback (when testing) with the Panasonic is that it works with telephones fare out of spec. On the other hand, this is the great strength with the Panasonic for use with the same telephones.
The tester has a go/not go LED for sound modulation, this test will usually be OK done by calling to another phone and talking...

I have been looking on pretty many Youtube films about telephone repair, and one person "named" A1 telephone repair use a tester all the time, this shows how easy it is by using one, but on the other hand; my guess is that he sends out phones with dials not working well on the most critical ATA's

dsk

[Doug Rose]

thanks Lady and Gents....I really appreciate the insight. I always wondered what I was missing.....Doug

[brookbam]

thanks Lady and Gents....I really appreciate the insight. I always wondered what I was missing.....Doug

Hi Doug,
I know you have your question already answered, but I need the test equipment because I don't have a landline coming into my home and I'm not about to bring one in. I actually have the RS tester, the BK Precision 1045A and now the 1050 and two Panasonic 616s...and I hate to admit this but the two 616s are still out on my porch in the shipping boxes. I'll probably keep all of it for now, but I suspect I'll probably part with some of it as I get settled into a system to test phones....and also whether I have a steady supply of phones to sell as part of my surplus business...not to mention the ones I keep.
So anyway...still trying to figure all of this out and the best route for me to go.
Mike

[Doug Rose]

Hi all,
This is my first post but I've been lurking on the site for about a year.

I grabbed the 1050 while the grabbing was good 

I've got the 1045A and also the RS tester. Haven't been on for over a week and just happened to check in today and saw this. I couldn't believe it was still available at that price.

The good news is a site member got it. The bad news is another site member didn't get it.

Mike

 Mike....welcome to the Forum.....this is the place to be if you like old telephones......Doug

[brookbam]

Came across this one on ebay tonite. If I didn't already have one, I'd probably buy it.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/BK-Precision-Model-1050-Telephone-Analyzer-B-K-B-K-Phone-Test-Equipment/303037054306

?hash=item468e6a7d62:g:SpMAAOSwa1hcRjUf:sc:FedExHomeDelivery!57301!US!-1:rk:1:pf:0

Mike

[robert_m]

Hi All, just so theres no confusion the 1050 is a decent piece of equipment, however it WILL NOT and SHOULD not be considered accurate for any pulse dialing period.  that should be done on a 930a with options 01 and 13 would be "generally" required for any hobbiest working on, restoring, repairing old telsets.  So net is all what your tring to test, but for rotary dial testing, the BKs mentioned are not what you want period.

[Jim Stettler]

.  that should be done on a 930a with options 01 and 13 would be "generally" required for any hobbiest working on, restoring, repairing old telsets.

?
Sage? 930a
http://userequip.com/files/specs/4652/SAGE%20930A%20Operating.pdf
read page 49/518 about what the set does.


( GM NOTE: Page reference may not be correct (Chapter missing, eg Chapter ? -  Page 49 of a 518 page manual? )

[FABphones]

I can see page 49+ ok but it takes a while to load.

Is there any place I can download this into ibook?

Thanks.

[TelePlay]

     Regular Member Post

I can see page 49+ ok but it takes a while to load.

Is there any place I can download this into ibook?

Thanks.

Do you mean PDF document Page 49 which is Chapter 3 Page 1 of the Manual (3-1)?

I tried to attach the manual last night but kept getting a system stack overflow, white screen, the 26 MByte document was too large for the forum security check software.

So, here it is attached in 4 parts.

Table of Contents
Chapters 1-4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6

[FABphones]

Got them! Thanks for that, appreciated. 

[Jim Stettler]

?
Sage? 930a
http://userequip.com/files/specs/4652/SAGE%20930A%20Operating.pdf
read page 49/518 about what the set does.


( GM NOTE: Page reference may not be correct (Chapter missing, eg Chapter ? -  Page 49 of a 518 page manual? )

Page 49 of the 518 scanned pages vs the manual page number.
Section 3.1 describes what the unit can do. It is all outgoing cable tests, you can send various dial tones/pulses, but the machine doesn't test telephones. You cannot change the dial settings with the instrument.

[brookbam]

Hi All, just so theres no confusion the 1050 is a decent piece of equipment, however it WILL NOT and SHOULD not be considered accurate for any pulse dialing period.  that should be done on a 930a with options 01 and 13 would be "generally" required for any hobbiest working on, restoring, repairing old telsets.  So net is all what your tring to test, but for rotary dial testing, the BKs mentioned are not what you want period.

Ya...I know. But thanks for pointing that out. I posted the sale link because this part of the forum is for 1045/1050 sightings. I hope that people that are looking for one knows what either piece of equipment can or cannot do....but...for an absolute newbie...it is nice that this is mentioned in case someone gets all starry eyed by all the "things" on the front of the 1050 thinking it would do "everything."

With that said...I'm kind of on the hunt for a Sage 930a now to test dials. Like I said...kind of. The $$$ is a tad tight for me right now.

Thanks for the post and the follow up posts.

Mike