View Full Version : How to run an analog phone on a digital line?


suede
07-23-2010, 09:19 AM
I saw ads on the 'bay for digital to analog converters for your phone. So you can use your old girls. But they all want around 90-100bucks for something thats the size of a credit card and a 1/2" thick... This seems rather pricey to me. Is there a cheaper way that i can be able to use a vintage phone?

OvenMaster
07-23-2010, 08:24 PM
We have a Northern Electric desk dial phone (a WE 500 clone) from around 1970 in our living room connected to our DSL/phone line through a Verizon-provided phone filter and it still works perfectly. Before we got DSL in 2007 we didn't have to do anything special to keep it usable and running daily.

Electrohome
07-24-2010, 12:46 AM
Hello, I'm a phone collector as well and I have many Northern Electric phones as well which include 500's from 1954-80's, 554's from 1957-80's, a few rare NE 1500's(10 button touch-tone phones), many Northern Electric key sets from 1954-80's in addition to many other phones as well.
These are the old Bell Canada phones as well.

ChrisW6ATV
08-14-2010, 01:16 AM
I did not even know there were "digital" phone circuits in homes. Well, yes, the VoIP stuff like AT&T U-verse and similar, but don't even those systems include a VoIP-to-standard-phone adapter box with the service?

I guess I am glad to still have my old-fashioned phone wiring and service. Any old phone I have still just plugs in and works.

Dude111
01-05-2015, 04:06 AM
I have a cordless phone I got from salvation army a few months ago (A 46Mhz phone) and it works OK over the digital phone system we have. (Cable company)

Some of the audio IS TOO LOUD HOWEVER and you can really hear what it sounds like when listening on an ANALOG phone.... LIKE CRAP!!

But MY voice sounds MUCH NICER to people I am talking to...... (Not as constrained (Would sound EVEN BETTER if it was 100% analogue all thru like it was in the 80s))

zeno
01-05-2015, 07:23 AM
Just plug it in. I use a 50's WE dial phone at my desk.
If for no other reason I can hear it. When I gotta get
through a phone menu I use a portable then switch over.

73 Zeno:smoke:

lnx64
01-05-2015, 10:55 AM
Got a 302 Western Electric plugged into Vonage V-Portal directly, no issues. Not sure what's even in this digital to analog phone adapter, sounds like snake oil to me.

CoogarXR
01-05-2015, 11:55 AM
He could be talking about a bluetooth adapter, I have seen those. It's a box that connects to a cell phone bluetooth signal, and converts it to an analog phone line. That way when you are at home, your cell phone serves as your analog phone line, and you can use your old phones with it. I actually considered buying one of those when I ditch my analog service some day.

Otherwise, if you are just talking about "digital voice" service from your cable provider or whatever, any old landline phone will work with that (however, I have heard that they don't have the power to ring multiple phones with the old bell-ringers)

Olorin67
01-05-2015, 12:14 PM
I have a 1940s Western electric in my living room, works fine with my cable company (time warner) phone service. Dials out just fine.

Dude111
01-06-2015, 04:27 AM
Congrats on your 1940s phone!!! :)

Jon A.
01-06-2015, 05:00 AM
One reason I use my old pulse-dialer with keypad is that it's part of my clock radio. I also have a 1983 Northern Telecom tone-dialer. I just plug straight into the wall.

Celt
01-06-2015, 05:20 AM
Up until I turned off my land-line service...I could still use my old rotary candlestick phone, without any modification on the same service for my dial up modem, fax machine and digital telly-o-fone.

http://videokarma.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=178068&d=1363111954

Electronic M
01-06-2015, 12:19 PM
I have a 1940s Western electric in my living room, works fine with my cable company (time warner) phone service. Dials out just fine.

Same here I've got two 40's era phones up stairs and a 60's wall phone in my shop area...Though I'm only ringing two of them since the one in my room has a broken ringer (which is the main reason I wanted that one in my room).

Olorin67
01-06-2015, 12:29 PM
with old phones that don't ring, its often because the phone is eqipped with a frequency selective ringer for party-line service. those can be identified by a weighted clapper and a reed like spring.

Electronic M
01-06-2015, 01:01 PM
Could be, but IIRC some of the ringer wires were removed and left hanging by a previous owner, so it likely was intentionally disabled. I have no intention of fixing it. There are too many assholes that call at ungodly hours of the morning, and I'd eventually end up throwing any phone guilty of ruining my sleep out a (possibly closed) window window in a half awake, enraged, stupor. No ringer volume on that one to adjust either.