French '330-1' telephone

[TimS]

My other half has acquired this French telepone which on the outside looks like a 300 series (if my browsing of the web has yielded correct info) but on the inside, possibly not.

How would I (or can I) wire this up to our phone line?

I have no prior experience of old telephones.

thanks in advance,
-- Tim.

[AndiiT]

Hi,
The first place to check is this site http://www.britishtelephones.com/ and look for information on the GPO 300 series. (if you haven't already been there)

Is then original line cord still fitted to the telephone and if so does it have a plug or spade ended connections, also how many wires are there in the line cord?


Regards
Andrew

[Nickthedentist]

Hi Tim,

This is very much a French phone, and doesn't really have any similarity with the British 300-series phones, other than that it's black and roughly the same shape.

Yours seems to be dated 1960. The British 300-series phones were introduced in the 1930s and remained in common use until the 1960s or even 1970s, but were superseded by the 700-series which was introduced in the very late 1950s. So I suppose yours could be considered to be from roughly the same era.

It should be straightforward enough to convert so that it works on a modern line (to a greater or lesser extent), but you'd either need a bit of electronic know-how to work out the details, or find a French site that has info.

Good luck,
Nick.

[Station X]

It would be a good idea to trace out and draw the circuit. Then I'm sure someone on here could advise you how to connect it. Is there a diagram stuck to the case?

[TimS]

No circuit diagram I'm afraid. I've been to britishtelephones.com and a few other sites which is where I saw the exterior resemblance to UK 300 series phones.

The cord is still attached, with three wires in red, white and blue. No plug on the end of any type.

I'll get a circuit diagram drawn this week, and return with further questions!

-- Tim.

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by TimS

No circuit diagram I'm afraid. I've been to britishtelephones.com and a few other sites which is where I saw the exterior resemblance to UK 300 series phones.

The cord is still attached, with three wires in red, white and blue. No plug on the end of any type.

I'll get a circuit diagram drawn this week, and return with further questions!

-- Tim.

Try connecting a 6V battery across any two of the three wires (very patriotic colours; typical French... ) and listening for clicks and your side-tone in the receiver. When you find the pair that allows speech from the mic to be heard in the receiver, turn the dial and listen for clicks. You'll then probably be able to make a start and use these as your line-pair (across the UK pins 2 and 5 in the line-jack unit).

It's only a start, mind you... Your telephone may be wired like the old GPO system pre-1980's with the bells in series (on extensions) and the speech ccts in parallel, hence the third wire. When you've drawn a cct you should be able to pick out the bell (and its capacitor) wiring, and adjust the circuitry with links. The trick then will be to keep a common speech/bell wire, lead a second wire out as determined by the battery experiment (above), and use the third wire to take the other end of the bell-coil out to use on terminal 3 in the UK line-jack unit.

[Station X]

Even simpler just connect a meter on ohms range across each pair of wires in turn. The line pair should show an open circuit until the handset is taken off hook. On rotating the dial and allowing it to return slowly you should see the meter reading varying with each dial pulse. These wires go to terminals 2 and 5 of the line jack. Be careful, because the pins of the plug are numbered differently to the jack.

You'll need to disconnect the bell capacitor which is connected in series with the bell and arrange things so that the bell is connected between pins 3 and 5 of the jack. Use the third wire to achieve this.

You'll get the idea from the "UK Telephone Socket Information" booklet which can be downloaded here:-

http://www.vintage-radio.info/docs/index.htm

[TimS]

I was too busy looking at the innards to notice what was on the back of the panel covering the cable terminals.... Circuit diagram now attached!

White and blue connect to 2 & 5 on the BT box. It dials out fine.

The bell is the next problem, mainly because there is no bell....?

-- Tim.

[Station X]

The circuit shows a bell at bottom right marked S with a ~ symbol to denote AC. If none is fitted you could fit an external bell between J3 and J5 of the line jack.

[AndiiT]

Hi,
Looking at the circuit the Red lead of the line cord should be connected to terminal L1 in the phone and the White lead to L2 Marked 9 and 10 on the diagram. At the Line Jack end the red lead should go to terminal 2 (B leg) and white to terminal 5 (A leg) you may have already got this far.

It looks like the bell is intended to be externally series wired between terminals 10 and 11, the blue lead of the line cord being connected to the internal 2uF ringing capacitor via terminal 11. As this capacitor is also part of the sidetone balancing network it may be prudent to wire an external bell between the White and Blue leads of the telephones line cord.

The bell circuit in this phone appears to be in series with the "A leg" end of the telephone circuit unlike most British phones where the bell circuit hangs off the "B leg" end, any extra bells then being connected in series with one leg of the bell and the A leg which is common to speech and ringing (this is not done nowadays as all bells are now parallel wired)

It may be prudent to wire a 3k3 ohm resistor in series with one side of the bell coils if ringing problems are experienced, probably between the white lead (terminal 10) and the "cold" end of the bell - do not be tempted to exploit the ringing capacitor already fitted in the master socket (line jack) as your French phone would need a lot of rewiring in order to achieve this.

Regards
Andrew

[plumbweiss]

I've got a whole shedfull of these french phones, they are a sort of plasticky material quite unlike bakelite 200/300's. They seem to be appearing in auctions and sales all over the place at the moment, maybe the french telecomms companies are purging their old stock..?