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Old 19th Sep 2012, 8:27 am   #21
Ryan_1993
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

Whoops I sorta missed that, thanks.
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Old 19th Sep 2012, 2:29 pm   #22
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

How difficult or easy is it to wire a new receiver cord onto the Type 746? As a lot of the more inexpensive ones on ebay have a stretched out cord and I would like to give one a full overhaul.

Thanks

Ryan
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Old 19th Sep 2012, 3:18 pm   #23
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

Easy!

At the phone end: 4 screw terminals and a slide-in grommet.

At the handset ("receiver") end: 2 screw and 2 nut terminals, but also the "fun" of threading two very flexible wires through the body of the receiver to the earpiece, though this is easily done by poking a bit of stiffer wire through first, then attaching the flexible ones to it with Sellotape and pulling them through. The other tricky bit is to attach the grommet to the body of the handset using its rather unique twisty locking mechanism, but even that's easy if you study it and understand how it's meant to work before you try doing it.

Tools needed: screwdriver, long-nose pliers, tiny adjustable spanner if you happen to have one, length of stiffish wire, sticky tape.

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Old 19th Sep 2012, 3:42 pm   #24
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

Alternatively, just look for one with a decent curly cord. They're hardly rare.
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Old 19th Sep 2012, 4:06 pm   #25
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

As Nick says, easy. These phones were designed for easy repair.
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Old 19th Sep 2012, 5:43 pm   #26
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

Thanks for the info.

Regarding the phone line I think now I'm just gonna buy a rather long 30m typical extension lead and then cut it. Drill a hole in the top corner almost near the ceiling of my room thread it into the airing cupboard behind my bedroom wall. Then drill a hole low down near the bottom the wooden door frame of the cupboard. Then remove all the edge beading on the right hand side of my study, its for the wooden floor. Then tuck the cable behind that and fix back in place. then i'll just use my wire cutters to cut out the excess and then join it back together.

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Old 19th Sep 2012, 6:23 pm   #27
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

If you are going to cut wires would it not be better to buy a fixed socket and some wire and the little plastic tool to push the wires into the back of the socket in the office?
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Old 19th Sep 2012, 7:04 pm   #28
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

Yes, I agree.

Get a cheap reel of the proper CW1308 2-pair cable, a 2/3A IDC secondary socket and a cheap IDC punchdown tool, and you can do the work like a pro, instead of an amateurish DIY bodge.

Here's everything you need in one kit:http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/15m-WHITE-...item518a4ceeea

A decent metal-bladed IDC punchdown tool is well worth buying if you're likely to be doing more than one socket: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/IDC-TELEPH...item5193ad61d4

Loads of other sources around, obviously.

Nick.

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Old 19th Sep 2012, 10:16 pm   #29
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

Hi Ryan
Re the wireless phone jack - I have one of these in my garden shed with the base unit in the house plugged into my Revelation system as an extension. It works fine with a modern DECT phone but I have tried it on my 162 Pyramid phone and it does NOT work. The phone does not ring and I cannot dial out.
Regards
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Old 20th Sep 2012, 6:14 am   #30
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

Thanks a lot for trying it, I am just going to sort a phone socket out now.

Thanks again

Ryan
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Old 20th Sep 2012, 8:56 pm   #31
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

Hello again everyone

so I finally bought a type 746 in two tone green.

I just hope the green looks okay on a white desk, I do have olive green items in my room though like a rug, and one of my walls "the feature wall" is painted a very light olive green so I imagine it will. If not, I suppose there is always the possibility of changing its colour to black in the future.

This is a photo of the actual phone below. Not sure what that buttons for on the top, but will I be able to remove this and fit one of them plastic fill in pieces? As I don't think I'd have a use for that.

It also looks like the receiver cord is pretty stretched too, but not much of a mega issue as you can buy replacements i'll have to have a closer look when I actually get it over the coming days.

Could someone explain to me why the phone doesn't have a darker green dial surround? A lot tend to have a darker green surround to match the darker coloured receiver. Was this an optional extra or something? Not big issue as I'll most likely buy the darker surround as I prefer it.

Also are the dials able to easily be removed? because I would like to try and clean it up or is this something rather difficult?

I did read online somewhere how someone unscrewed theirs and basically all the springs inside pinged apart ruining the whole mechanism, obviously I don't want that to happen on mine if I unscrew the dial.



Thanks

Ryan
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Old 20th Sep 2012, 9:03 pm   #32
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

Hi Ryan.

Can you go up into the loft with a cable then down through the ceiling in a corner? Or out under the eaves and down the outside wall and in a little hole in the corner of the window-frame? Just an idea.

The button on the top might switch the bell on/off. Useful if you wanted it not to ring in the bedroom whilst you were asleep. Sometimes they had a neon that lit up when it rang. Sometimes they were a 'recall' button to speak to the exchange or to divert a call to another extension, in an office-block, for instance.
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Old 20th Sep 2012, 11:54 pm   #33
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryan_1993 View Post
Not sure what that buttons for on the top, but will I be able to remove this and fit one of them plastic fill in pieces? As I don't think I'd have a use for that.
What are the markings underneath the 'phone? If they include "746R" then it's a Recall button. If so, the green casing and handset may not be original to that instrument as I think the 746R was only issued in grey. Yes you can get button blanks but what's the point? If you're not going to use the button, whatever it's for, then just leave it alone. 746 instruments with a functioning button are none too common now so I say leave it original.

Quote:
Could someone explain to me why the phone doesn't have a darker green dial surround? A lot tend to have a darker green surround to match the darker coloured receiver. Was this an optional extra or something? Not big issue as I'll most likely buy the darker surround as I prefer it.
The dial surround is original to that colour case but some did appear with the handset-matching surround.

Quote:
Also are the dials able to easily be removed? because I would like to try and clean it up or is this something rather difficult?

I did read online somewhere how someone unscrewed theirs and basically all the springs inside pinged apart ruining the whole mechanism, obviously I don't want that to happen on mine if I unscrew the dial.
Remove the label cover (ask if you don't know how to do that), remove the label then remove the central screw. This releases the finger plate so you can then clean that and the now-exposed number ring. Do not remove any other screws or you'll end up with the 'ping' problem you mentioned.

If you wish, for any reason, to remove the entire dial unit, twist and unlock the dial surround and lift it away. Then remove the captive screw at the rear of the case and lift the case off. The dial is then released by the screw below its front. If you electrically disconnect the dial, make careful note of which wire goes to which terminal.

Sidestepping now, I blew up and lightened your image. To the left of the handset I can see a linecord. That linecord appears to be of the earlier round type rather than the 'D' section type used with PST (Plug and Socket). It is attached to your telephone? If so, what connector is on the end of it?
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Old 21st Sep 2012, 12:35 am   #34
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

I think they had to be special in some way to gain a dark surround.
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Old 21st Sep 2012, 12:44 am   #35
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

That's a 706 anyway, one of the variants intended for export yet still appearing quite regularly in the UK.
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Old 21st Sep 2012, 1:35 am   #36
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

It was returned to UK for disposal and "un-disposed of" of by me 30 years ago.
It is still in use all be it without the ringer resistor added.
The ringer is a bit too loud
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Old 21st Sep 2012, 6:14 am   #37
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

Hello thanks for your response.

Not sure yet as I don't have the phone, this is just a picture from the listing, but it was sold as being a GPO Type 8746R fully original and untouched apparently ready for conversion. Already bought the little conversion kit to do it.
If what you say about the R models being brown grey is true then it appears the casing has been changed at some point to two tone green. I did just look online and found a bit of info on the R, it says something along the lines of...

746R colours: Grey only at present. If other colours are required, provide a Telephone 706 or 746 plus appropriate parts as detailed above.

So it seems you are correct. I assume with the grey/brown not being very popular it was changed to a more desirable colour.

Ryan

Last edited by Ryan_1993; 21st Sep 2012 at 6:25 am.
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Old 21st Sep 2012, 12:42 pm   #38
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

Here's a photo of my green phone, which we still use as an extension. It was my office phone and was salvaged from my litter bin when our office exchange was replaced in the mid 1980's. The transparent button was used to call our local operator for transferring calls etc, and now serves no function. The original office installations were hard wired in as per contemporary practice, and relacement cordsets in grey cable terminated in BT plugs were readily available at that time.

I don't know why I had a green office phone: all the others were the usual two-tone grey. Funnily enough our original home phone had the same colour scheme. It had the old UK letters arranged around the dial surround and a matching green hard-wired cable, but didn't have the transparent button, nor was there a bar across the cradle under the handset that allows you to lift the phone with one hand with the handset remaining on the cradle.
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Old 21st Sep 2012, 1:08 pm   #39
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

That transparent button is an "earth Recall" button, and utilised the normally-unused green wire in the line cord which was connected to earth at the building's private exchange. Pressing the button momentarily connected one leg of the line to earth.

Modern phones still have one, marked "R", (and often mistaken for "Redial"), but this is a more up-to-date version known as "time break Recall" which essentially disconnects the phone from the line for a fraction of a second, rather like dialling a 1 from a pulse-dial phone.

As you might expect, many phones in the interim had recall buttons which could be configured to operate in either of the two ways, often by a hidden slide switch underneath.

The Recall button has no purpose on a normal domestic line, as far as I know.

Nick.
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Old 21st Sep 2012, 2:28 pm   #40
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Default Re: Need help deciding on a vintage landline phone for my bedroom

Thanks for the info. It may come tomorrow or Monday so I'll post an update.
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