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Old 1st Oct 2016, 9:49 am   #1
Ian - G4JQT
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Default Electric bell

Does anyone recognise the make of this bell? There's a close up of a symbol inside.

It rings gently with about 20V DC, but would be much louder at 30 or 40V, but my PSU only goes up to 25V.

Thanks.

Ian
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Old 1st Oct 2016, 10:32 am   #2
Herald1360
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Default Re: Electric bell

Looks like "telephone" quality there. First trembler bell I've ever seen with a built in spark suppression network.
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Old 1st Oct 2016, 10:40 am   #3
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Default Re: Electric bell

Looks like a buzzer I had back in the 60s. Should have been a bell but the clapper and bell holder had been removed/broken off. I'm sure I used to run it off a 4.5V battery. It may have been given to me by a GPO engineer.

Keith
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Old 1st Oct 2016, 10:51 am   #4
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Default Re: Electric bell

Hello,
http://www.britishtelephones.com/bell56.htm
Yours, Richard
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Old 1st Oct 2016, 11:22 am   #5
Ian - G4JQT
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Default Re: Electric bell

That looks like the chap! Thanks very much.

Ian
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Old 1st Oct 2016, 12:48 pm   #6
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Default Re: Electric bell

ISTR bells like this being installed as fault alarms in the Post Office Strowger exchanges.

They had a hard life because faults were frequent and rectification sometimes took a while. I remember seeing one bell where the clapper had worn so much that it had practically disappeared!

Martin
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Old 1st Oct 2016, 1:00 pm   #7
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Default Re: Electric bell

Quote:
Originally Posted by KeithsTV View Post
Looks like a buzzer I had back in the 60s.
There is a similar buzzer: http://www.britishtelephones.com/buzz20.htm
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Old 1st Oct 2016, 1:08 pm   #8
G8HQP Dave
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Default Re: Electric bell

The capacitor looks more modern than the resistor. Is it a later addition, or merely from a repair?
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Old 1st Oct 2016, 2:01 pm   #9
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Default Re: Electric bell

Hello,
Circuit (how to change voltage and single stroke etc) and some more info. here http://www.samhallas.co.uk/repositor.../0000/N656.pdf
Yours, Richard
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Old 1st Oct 2016, 4:15 pm   #10
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Default Re: Electric bell

The phone installation at a friend's house had a number of the old 4-connection jack plugs scattered round the house, into which the sole phone could be plugged. A centrally-located permanently-wired bell alerted you to an incoming call if the phone was unplugged. I don't remember what the bell looked like.
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Old 1st Oct 2016, 5:56 pm   #11
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Default Re: Electric bell

That bell would have been a telephone-type AC bell (not the DC trembler bell discribed here). It could have been the same mechanism and gongs as a 700-series telephone and would therefore sound much the same as a normal telephone of the period.
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Old 1st Oct 2016, 7:41 pm   #12
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Default Re: Electric bell

ISTR that the GPO was for some reason not keen on any installation where all the bells could be disconnected unlike today where simply unplugging all phones does just that.

I wondered about the capacitor too but I think nealy film type cxaps probably overlapped the last of the carbon resistors of the type used. If it's not original it's a neatly done replacement.
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Old 1st Oct 2016, 8:25 pm   #13
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Default Re: Electric bell

Quote:
Originally Posted by Herald1360 View Post
ISTR that the GPO was for some reason not keen on any installation where all the bells could be disconnected unlike today where simply unplugging all phones does just that.
The new master socket / NTE includes a 1.8 µF capacitor (bell circuit) to feed the AC ringing and a 470 kΩ resistor (R1, out-of-service resistor) to permit remote testing when no telephones are plugged into any sockets.

Previous installations relied on the 1000 ohm capacitive loop-back in the fixed bell for line testing when all telephones were unplugged.

It was rather rare to have a plug and socket installation and so subscribers may have been more likely to leave the phone unplugged, and calling subscribers to report an unanswered telephone as a fault, thereby making retention of an unswitched bell desirable from the point of view of the GPO.
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Old 1st Oct 2016, 8:28 pm   #14
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Default Re: Electric bell

...not to mention the lost tariff for an unanswered call, of course!
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Old 1st Oct 2016, 8:55 pm   #15
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Default Re: Electric bell

Now I think of it, when I was a student in the 1960's, the Students' Union had a phone for official use that could be plugged in in different meeting rooms. It was normally kept locked up in the Bursar's office and had to be signed for when you needed to use it.
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Old 2nd Oct 2016, 12:17 am   #16
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Default Re: Electric bell

As Tony says, were getting confused here. The subject of the thread is a DC bell, whereas we've drifted onto normal AC ringers, not the same thing at all.
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Old 2nd Oct 2016, 7:54 am   #17
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Default Re: Electric bell

Hi the bell looks like a PABX night service bell DC one as a GPO eng I fitted a few like that
( one at Smiths factory that was always going faulty until I moved it 20 feet up the wall?)

Dave
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Old 2nd Oct 2016, 2:10 pm   #18
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Default Re: Electric bell

Quote:
Originally Posted by dseymo1 View Post
...not to mention the lost tariff for an unanswered call, of course!
My workround back in the days (to silence the permanent ringer for non disturbance) was a bit of folded paper jammed between the clapper and gong on the fixed bell
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Old 2nd Oct 2016, 5:30 pm   #19
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Default Re: Electric bell

Back in the 1980s at work they had an internal exchange that filled a whole cupboard.
It used to fail to the night bell ringing like mad during almost all thunder storms. We used to wrap the clapper in that blue industrial tissue paper to keep it quiet for most of the day while the engineer fixed it.
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Old 2nd Oct 2016, 5:39 pm   #20
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Default Re: Electric bell

Quote:
Originally Posted by AC/HL View Post
That's the one. I think it went missing during a house move back in 67.

Keith
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