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