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Old 11th Jun 2021, 1:53 am   #10
hamid_1
Heptode
 
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: High Wycombe, Bucks. UK.
Posts: 811
Default Re: "Duck" telephone

This brings back some memories for me.
These novelty phones date from the 1990s. From what I remember of the Duck phone, its eyes light up and it makes a "quack-quack" sound when it rings. I don't have one myself, but I do have a couple of different novelty phones, the Hamburger and the Stiletto Shoe. Both were faulty when I acquired them very cheaply from a car boot sale.

Some of my relatives in Canada have an electronics shop. Back in the 90s, they sold a whole range of novelty telephones. Their shop is still in business, though their website doesn't offer any novelty phones at the moment - I guess there's not much demand now. But I do remember they had a quite high rate of customer returns for the novelty and cheap one-piece phones on which they are based. They were all hastily assembled in Hong Kong or China. Some were faulty when taken out of the box brand-new. I remember visiting the shop and going through a boxful of faulty phones, testing them on a Radio Shack telephone line simulator and trying to fix some of them. Bad soldering and even wrong components fitted were some of the faults I came across, as well as faulty dialler ICs. Also, these phones sometimes get dropped on the floor, resulting in cracked print on the PCB or dry joints opening up. The hook switch was another thing that could go faulty.

I hope the above may give you some clues when fault-finding, but as I said, they weren't the most reliable things even when new; they were essentially throwaway novelties. If all else fails, keep it as a display piece. You may get another one with a different fault and be able to make one good one out of two.
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