I’m a copper cable maintenance technician who has recently been interested in learning more about switching and the station side of telephony. This is my favorite RUclips channel for information and history of the Bell System.
What caught my eye was when I saw Touch -Tone frequencies appearing on the screen of your "Craftsman" voltmeter. At a glance it looks exactly like my "Craftsman" voltmeter (same color, same shape etc.). It was ONLY after I looked at the screen with a magnifying glass I could see the case of the voltmeter said: "Frequency". Wow! Before I saw that I thought you had the voltmeter connected to a (frequency to voltage) device (which I didn't see) because I had to set my phone down for awhile to flip my eggs as I was preparing breakfast. When I saw that your "Voltmeter" is also a "Frequency Counter" I decided to get one like yours. BTW... I was also impressed with the way you were "Tuning" the dial. I don't doubt that it's damn-delicate. I am surprised that Western Electric didn't lock those inductors down with a drop of hot glue at the factory. It's the only ("drop the ball") kinda Hitch that I've ever seen Western Electric do. Needing to send thousands of service men out to "re-tune" MILLIONS of Touch -Tone dials around the country, definitely sounds like their first mistake. Fortunately, of course, they'll never have to deal with it now.
I had to clean and adjust two princess phone touch tone dials just a few weeks ago. There have been many articles about this ingenious device. The circuit design is so good I have never seen one be out of adjustment except for this one I came across recently. What I did was take a standard plastic alignment tool melted slightly and then pushed it into the triangular core essentially making my own tool. It takes very little force to turn the core so this solution worked out perfectly. Normally if the dial pad is in use I believe it keeps itself clean the problem is if it’s not used for years
Just got a near mint 1979 WE 2500DM , works great but dial tone and receiving volume were very low. Did the contact cleaning, now it works like new. Used the cardboard and contact cleaner method. Thanks
I can confirm that the WE 2500 still did not have a polarity guard as of April 1980 (refurb). My first two 2500 sets taught me that I wired my line into my panel backwards. I unfortunately damaged a core on the older 2500 that I have, fortunately that set is a bit of a junker anyway as someone before me removed the bells, but it's made a great conversation starter in the office. Sometime between 1975 and 1979 they went to the 4228 network.
Thanks so much for sharing! I was able to tune up a sweet custom phone I had here with one of those Western Electric dial pads. PS: I wasn't able to get a frequency meter I had here to read correctly and ended up using an Android app called Spectroid to listen to the tones. Not sure if they have something similar iPhone or not. Also, I somewhat melted the end of a thin plastic paintbrush I had here to use in place of that special tuning tool.
I’m a copper cable maintenance technician who has recently been interested in learning more about switching and the station side of telephony. This is my favorite RUclips channel for information and history of the Bell System.
Excellent content. I was getting low dial tone and your vid rescued my office phone I have been using for over 35 years. Thanks!!
What caught my eye was when I saw Touch -Tone frequencies appearing on the screen of your "Craftsman" voltmeter. At a glance it looks exactly like my "Craftsman" voltmeter (same color, same shape etc.). It was ONLY after I looked at the screen with a magnifying glass I could see the case of the voltmeter said: "Frequency". Wow! Before I saw that I thought you had the voltmeter connected to a (frequency to voltage) device (which I didn't see) because I had to set my phone down for awhile to flip my eggs as I was preparing breakfast. When I saw that your "Voltmeter" is also a "Frequency Counter" I decided to get one like yours. BTW... I was also impressed with the way you were "Tuning" the dial. I don't doubt that it's damn-delicate. I am surprised that Western Electric didn't lock those inductors down with a drop of hot glue at the factory. It's the only ("drop the ball") kinda Hitch that I've ever seen Western Electric do. Needing to send thousands of service men out to "re-tune" MILLIONS of Touch -Tone dials around the country, definitely sounds like their first mistake. Fortunately, of course, they'll never have to deal with it now.
I had to clean and adjust two princess phone touch tone dials just a few weeks ago. There have been many articles about this ingenious device. The circuit design is so good I have never seen one be out of adjustment except for this one I came across recently.
What I did was take a standard plastic alignment tool melted slightly and then pushed it into the triangular core essentially making my own tool. It takes very little force to turn the core so this solution worked out perfectly.
Normally if the dial pad is in use I believe it keeps itself clean the problem is if it’s not used for years
Just got a near mint 1979 WE 2500DM , works great but dial tone and receiving volume were very low. Did the contact cleaning, now it works like new. Used the cardboard and contact cleaner method. Thanks
I can confirm that the WE 2500 still did not have a polarity guard as of April 1980 (refurb). My first two 2500 sets taught me that I wired my line into my panel backwards. I unfortunately damaged a core on the older 2500 that I have, fortunately that set is a bit of a junker anyway as someone before me removed the bells, but it's made a great conversation starter in the office. Sometime between 1975 and 1979 they went to the 4228 network.
Thanks so much for sharing! I was able to tune up a sweet custom phone I had here with one of those Western Electric dial pads.
PS: I wasn't able to get a frequency meter I had here to read correctly and ended up using an Android app called Spectroid to listen to the tones. Not sure if they have something similar iPhone or not. Also, I somewhat melted the end of a thin plastic paintbrush I had here to use in place of that special tuning tool.
Great video Phil
I have several of these phones with touch tone issues. The inductor cores always fall apart.
Was your frequency meter just hooked up to the phone line?
Yes it's a frequency and voltmeter in one
Yes