A question about old fasioned telephones

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Old Dec 28, 2003 | 02:53 PM
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Question A question about old fasioned telephones

I have an older style wall-mounted telephone. It was made before the current 'modular' plug-in cords were the industry standard.

The coiled handset cord is too short, so I looked and looked for a longer one. All I could find was one on Ebay...so I bought it. Problem is...The one on my phone has four wires, and the new one I found has only three.

Is there anybody out there that is familiar with these older phones that can tell me how to adapt the three wire cord?

Thanks,
MR
 
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Old Dec 28, 2003 | 03:44 PM
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Re: A question about old fasioned telephones

Originally posted by MROLDV8
I have an older style wall-mounted telephone. It was made before the current 'modular' plug-in cords were the industry standard.

The coiled handset cord is too short, so I looked and looked for a longer one. All I could find was one on Ebay...so I bought it. Problem is...The one on my phone has four wires, and the new one I found has only three.

Is there anybody out there that is familiar with these older phones that can tell me how to adapt the three wire cord?

Thanks,
MR
I might be crazy, but uhh, buy a new phone?
 
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Old Dec 28, 2003 | 09:06 PM
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Can't do that! This is a special phone. I bought it about 20 years ago. It's made to look like an antique wall phone, and is a mixture of old parts and some newer technology. It's made of oak, has a clock in it, but has pushbuttons. The front opens up so that you can keep a pad of paper and pencil inside. The problem is...the handset cord is only about three feet long.

MR
 
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Old Dec 28, 2003 | 09:17 PM
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From: the moral high ground
I don't think you can hurt anything by playing with the possibilities
If the wires aren't color coded, tag them with numbers.
start with 1 to 1 and so on til you get a dial tone.

That's the best I can think of, flafonman hasn't posted in nearly three weeks.
 
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Old Dec 28, 2003 | 10:18 PM
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You only need two wires for your phone. The new phone jacks in house’s now days carry 2 lines, or 4 wires. That is so if you wanted to have your house wired for two separate phone lines the wiring is already there.

So, your 4 wire (2 line system) consist of two pairs of wires. The common or first line utilizes the Green and Red colored wires. The second line, or set of wires are Black and Yellow.

If you only have one phone line in your house then best bet says you’re utilizing the Green and Red wires of the phone line. Do as Raoul stated by taking the Green and Red wires and try different combinations until you hear a dial tone.

If you have access to the phone jack that the phone company uses to wire you to the phone system you can get inside that and see what colors they are actually using. You could also call your local phone company and ask them what two colors they use for the “main” phone line.

Hope that helps a bit…
 
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Old Dec 28, 2003 | 10:31 PM
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How about just buy a new cord from walmart or where ever and cut the ends off of it and wire them to the proper locations(I assume the wire in the phone is color coded) There can't be anything too serious there. possiablt a signal wire to the mic and speaker and a common ground, I would think that since yours has 4 wires it is grounding the two seperatly.
 
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Old Dec 28, 2003 | 10:39 PM
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He is stating that his phone has (4 wires) and the new cord he bought has (3 wires) therefore he doesn’t need to buy a new one since he already has an extra wire to begin with. He will only need two wires for the phone so it’s just a matter of finding the two that will work.

Do you happen to know what color the 3 wires are in the new cord you bought off ebay? If so list them. It seems odd that it has 3 wires, but it could be an extra wire for systems that have some kind of noise reduction circuitry in some phone systems. I have no idea about those.

Anyway if you see two wires that are Green and Red, or Black and Yellow you should be able to just match them right up.
 
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Old Dec 28, 2003 | 11:00 PM
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I dug my old rotary phone out of the basement and took a look inside. There are four wires to the handset, red, black and two white. The red and black are hooked to the mouthpiece, the whites both to the earpiece.

Inside the base the black and one white wire are connected to seperate terminals, the red and other white are hooked to the same terminal.

Judging by this I would *GUESS* that with three wires two would go to the mouthpiece, one to the earpiece and a jumper between the mouthpiece and earpiece.

Since you will have to disassemble the phone to change the handset cord you should be able to do the same thing I did. Just check where all the wires hook in the handset noting the colors and then trace the wires by color to the base. If two of the wires connect together in either the handset or base then a three wire cord should work.
 
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Old Dec 29, 2003 | 12:08 AM
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OK...I know about the two vs four wire line cord thing, but this is a handset issue.

The old four wire handset cord has four wires...red & green to the mouthpiece, and black & yellow to the earpiece. The new three wire cord has a black, a red and a white wire. I have to unscrew the phone from the wall and then take it apart to see what the guts and their connections look like. I havn't done that yet. I am hoping that a common ground will work.

I thought about using a new cord and reworking the ends, and I still may have to do that, but the new ones are shiney/plastic-looking. This old one looks like genuine rubba.

MR
 
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Old Dec 29, 2003 | 09:34 AM
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This link may help you.

Phone Wiring

If you look carefully at the second picture you see that 3 wires come out of the duplex coil. Red/Green to the mouthpiece and Green to the earpiece. You will also see the Red runs from the mouthpiece to the earpiece.

Your handset cord from EBay is using the "new" (post 1984) color codes for handsets. Your pairs (if you have 4 wires) are RED/WHITE and BLACK/WHITE. In you case I would try RED/WHITE to the mouthpiece and the BLACK to the earpiece. You may need to make a connection from the mouth to the ear to complete the connection. If it doesn't work the first thing I'd try is reversing the Red and White connections.

Good Luck.
 
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Old Dec 29, 2003 | 05:43 PM
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From: the moral high ground
Thumbs up

Ok, flafonman has given you instructions to get the phone working.

Just be aware that everytime you dial you'll be registering a vote for Pat Buchanan.
 
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Old Dec 29, 2003 | 06:37 PM
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Originally posted by Raoul


Just be aware that everytime you dial you'll be registering a vote for Pat Buchanan.


That's it...The phone's in the garbage.
 
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Old Dec 29, 2003 | 06:42 PM
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flafonman...All I can hope for is that the two elements in the handset use a common ground.
When I pull it off the wall and dig into it, I'll let you guys know what happens. Thanks.

MR
 
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Old Dec 31, 2003 | 10:48 AM
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GOT THE PHONE WORKIN

Yesterday there was a Cincinnati Bell guy working on the phone lines at the back of my building. I explained my problem to him, and here's what he said...The Cincinnati area uses a module that requires a four wire system. If I were to try to get my three wire cord to work by using a common ground, I would most likely lose volume. Then he opened the back doors of his van, rummaged around a bit and took out an old black phone. He took it apart, and gave me the handset, which had a modular wiring set-up on it. Then he removed the modular cord adapter from inside the phone...it converted the plug-in cord to four wires with spade ends! He then gave me a brand new 12' (or so) long coiled handset cord. (What a guy!) Well I hooked it all up this morning, screwed the phone back on the wall, and it works great.

I want to thank you guys for helping me out with this non-F150 related problem.
This is a GREAT website!

MR
 
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