I managed to buy a Telecome Transit telephone this year on Ebay. Think i paid $20 buck which was so cheap considering how rare these are. Thanks to you i didnt know about the batteries on the underbelly and sure enough found decayed batteries. Love the video. So you use peroxide to white the plastic. Didnt know that will give it a go.
The T200 was my fav of the series.. Crap Membrane, but they looked so futuristic at the time... I've still got one and it's plugged in and working.. It's set for decadic dial, so the # and * keys are disabled. It's also got the worst ringer, but I still enjoy listening to it screech!
Do you reckon in a few decades from now people will be collecting touch screen mobile phones? When displayed as an inert collection they would just look like different sized glass rectangles.
Might be a market for stick on screens that make them look alive. Otherwise they would be very boring. You would also need to remove the batteries which have a habit of expanding when they fill up with gas and break the screen. I guess we should be making videos of their operation so people can make online emulators later.
These phones were such an Australian institution. What does the LED on that first phone you looked at actually indicate? I remember what I think was the Touchfone 250, we had two of them in our house when I was growing up, I don't think we had the later Touchfone 400 units.
I believe the LED flashes when the phone is ringing but have never seen one in operation. The TF200 ran from 1988 until around 1996. The TF400 came out around 1997 with more buttons for the Easycall features that came out at the same time. There is a TF300 but it may have only been for PABX use. They were a well designed Australian product, other than the membrane keypad that came out on the early ones, and some grabbed the line briefly every so often and would drop out internet connections from what I have heard.
@@StevesElectronicRepairShop Yes, I've heard that too, my understanding is the phones would 'grab the line' as you put it in order to charge up the internal battery to retain the preset phone numbers, maybe I'm wrong. I don't remember actually using a Telecom phone with a flat membrane keypad on it. The ones we had were fitted with light grey keys, and I think there were 6 buttons above the keypad. I do remember them having a volume control type thing on the right hand side.
@@Lachlant1984 It was supposedly grabbing the line for memory retention. I dont think they had a battery, probably a capacitor or something. The 200s all had a sliding ringer volume and the 6 keys, except one model that could be used with a headset which had 8 function keys. I think the membrane types were quickly discontinued and probably gone by 1990. I think they were both a risk of shock from lightning, and had issues with static electricity getting into the phone from people fingers. They also had a rubbish tactile response, much like trying to type in numbers on a microwave oven.
@@StevesElectronicRepairShop Right, or trying to type on a Speak & Spell keyboard. I think I may have seen one of those membrane keypad phones very briefly in around 1991 or 1992. What made those phones for susceptible to shocking users due to a lightning strike than the rubber button variants?
@@Lachlant1984 The membrane keypad is just a thin layer of plastic over the conductive parts. The rubber ones still use basically the same type of keypad, but with quite thick rubber buttons over the top which are a much better insulator if there is a distant lightning strike that doesnt put too high a voltage down the line. Still a shock hazard if there is a strike nearby, but then it can come out the handset or curly cord as well, which is why they said dont use in a thunderstorm unless an emergency.
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I managed to buy a Telecome Transit telephone this year on Ebay. Think i paid $20 buck which was so cheap considering how rare these are. Thanks to you i didnt know about the batteries on the underbelly and sure enough found decayed batteries. Love the video. So you use peroxide to white the plastic. Didnt know that will give it a go.
That is a good price, they certainly are rare. Glad you caught the batteries before they do major damage.
The T200 was my fav of the series.. Crap Membrane, but they looked so futuristic at the time... I've still got one and it's plugged in and working.. It's set for decadic dial, so the # and * keys are disabled. It's also got the worst ringer, but I still enjoy listening to it screech!
Do you reckon in a few decades from now people will be collecting touch screen mobile phones? When displayed as an inert collection they would just look like different sized glass rectangles.
Might be a market for stick on screens that make them look alive. Otherwise they would be very boring. You would also need to remove the batteries which have a habit of expanding when they fill up with gas and break the screen. I guess we should be making videos of their operation so people can make online emulators later.
These phones were such an Australian institution. What does the LED on that first phone you looked at actually indicate? I remember what I think was the Touchfone 250, we had two of them in our house when I was growing up, I don't think we had the later Touchfone 400 units.
I believe the LED flashes when the phone is ringing but have never seen one in operation. The TF200 ran from 1988 until around 1996. The TF400 came out around 1997 with more buttons for the Easycall features that came out at the same time. There is a TF300 but it may have only been for PABX use. They were a well designed Australian product, other than the membrane keypad that came out on the early ones, and some grabbed the line briefly every so often and would drop out internet connections from what I have heard.
@@StevesElectronicRepairShop Yes, I've heard that too, my understanding is the phones would 'grab the line' as you put it in order to charge up the internal battery to retain the preset phone numbers, maybe I'm wrong. I don't remember actually using a Telecom phone with a flat membrane keypad on it. The ones we had were fitted with light grey keys, and I think there were 6 buttons above the keypad. I do remember them having a volume control type thing on the right hand side.
@@Lachlant1984 It was supposedly grabbing the line for memory retention. I dont think they had a battery, probably a capacitor or something. The 200s all had a sliding ringer volume and the 6 keys, except one model that could be used with a headset which had 8 function keys. I think the membrane types were quickly discontinued and probably gone by 1990. I think they were both a risk of shock from lightning, and had issues with static electricity getting into the phone from people fingers. They also had a rubbish tactile response, much like trying to type in numbers on a microwave oven.
@@StevesElectronicRepairShop Right, or trying to type on a Speak & Spell keyboard. I think I may have seen one of those membrane keypad phones very briefly in around 1991 or 1992. What made those phones for susceptible to shocking users due to a lightning strike than the rubber button variants?
@@Lachlant1984 The membrane keypad is just a thin layer of plastic over the conductive parts. The rubber ones still use basically the same type of keypad, but with quite thick rubber buttons over the top which are a much better insulator if there is a distant lightning strike that doesnt put too high a voltage down the line. Still a shock hazard if there is a strike nearby, but then it can come out the handset or curly cord as well, which is why they said dont use in a thunderstorm unless an emergency.