New Life Games LLC
Other Hobbies and Interests that our NLG members enjoy => Other Hobbies and Interests => Topic started by: shortrackskater on February 24, 2015, 01:30:17 PM
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I've has this phone for well over 40 years, sitting in my room in various places. About a month ago, I "noticed" it, even though it had sat in its current location for 30 of those 40 years!
My uncle had given me this phone all those years ago. I remember fussing with it, using a D cell battery, hooking it up to the frayed wires coming out the back and hearing some clicking/static sounds on the receiver. I must have been around 11 years old or so. No one told me how phones worked or that they had to be physically wired into the wall to work! I never looked. We had a wall phone so I never saw wires...duh! Well I was 11, and didn't have much of any father figure to show me stuff. I must have thought that the phone was more like a radio transmitter, who knows.
Fast forward to Jan 2015, when I notice that this phone has sat all this time.
I pick it up, and just make a statement: "I'm going to make you work."
I open the phone and actually LOOK at the inside. It's missing something on the dial... there's just a dial there and no wires to anything! Also the cord to the wall had been tossed out since it was so rotted and frayed. The receiver cord was also rotted. I tried to strip the cloth back. When I exposed the three wires, the insulation just crumbled off!
Next step... internet!
I found some great pictures and diagrams and ... a forum! A forum much like our old NLG! As nice as the new one is, and all the work to move over here, I still think the old site was easier to navigate. But that's another story...er...rant, for another day.
Through that forum and diagrams and help from some people there, I was able to figure out that I had a WE 304. I originally thought it was the more common 302, which looks identical other than the insides. I learned about two wire and four wire ringers, party line wiring and all sorts of fun phone stuff!
As the few weeks passed, I eventually got all the stuff I needed. I got a new dial switch thingy (looks like a set of contacts that attaches to the dial clock mechanism), the hang up switch (which was gone... just had the buttons), a new set of repo cloth wiring and the cute little round plate that clips on the dial face.
After some wrong wiring attempts (this was when I thought it was a 302) I got it corrected, plugged the phone in and got a dial tone!
The audio was great in talking and listening. And it's kind of fun to actually DIAL a number.
I feel great that it's working again and I think my uncle (who passed away years ago) would have been happy that I gave new life to an old phone.
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Anyone ever read this? :Scratch-Head:
Makes me not want to bother posting another story, when there's no one here.
If a tree falls down in the forest...
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Don't be discouraged, 73 people read it
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I read it. That's very nice. I have a 57 western electric payphone I'll have to post a pic of. I like those old phones too. :cool_thumb_up:
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I read it,
I have one of those old phones with the leather feet. . Mine is dated 1936 inside,yes it still works.
To bad the Quality of plastic phones today only last a few years. These old phones will be working long after we are all gone.
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Thanks everyone! I feel better now. I was having an abandonment issue with this post... actually I had forgotten about it! :rotfl: