I have a old black wall mounted rotary dial phone, i love this phone. Does anyone know how to remove the # decal located in the center of the rotary dial. Thanks

 

Most of them were covered by a tin piece of plactic that can be removed with a pointed object (knife) inserted at the edge. The number is on another piece of paper/cardboard and MAY be glued in. At least you could replace this with a new paper or sticker cut in a circle. Good luck.

 

Each telephone manufacturer (Western Electric, Automatic Electric, Northern Telecom and others) had their own way of affixing the number plate and most manufacturers have changed their method several times over time.

Some of the methods used were a metal ring with a celluloid window that is removed by carefully pressing in (slightly distorting the roundness) at the point where the dial itself has a slot. The metal ring has two tabs on it, one longer than the other and you need to press in the shorter tab and lift the ring to remove the ring. I use a screwdriver for this job and you do not use a lot of pressure. If this is the style you have and you cannot get the ring off by pressing in on one side then try pressing in the other side.

Sometimes you will find the same arrangement as above but the ring will be plastic. Same procedure to remove but the plastic is easily broken so be careful.

Both of the above are usually found on metal dialing wheels.


Another style, usually found on plastic dialing wheels, requires the removal of the dialing wheel itself. These dials will have a small hole outside the diameter of the number plate yet inside the inner diameter of the finger holes. If I recall correctly this hole will be near the 9 and 0 finger holes. To remove the dial you need to insert a small pin (a straightened paper clip usually works) through this hole, depress a spring steel latch and then turn the dialing wheel backwards a few degrees. The dialing wheel will then be released and you can change the number plate from the back inside of the dialing wheel. Replacing the dialing wheel requires aligning in the proper orientation (it will be "off" a number hole or two) and then turning the dial in the normal rotation (use the 0 Operator hole) past where it would normally stop until the spring clicks into place.

 

most of the old rotary's had the small hole as stated above, you would turn the dial all the way to the end past "0", insert the end of a paper clip depressing the little latch, and turn the rotary a little further when the latch is depressed.. it would come off real easy at that point.. putting it back on, start just about where it was when it came off, turn it the opposite way, it will latch back in and work fine.. can't believe there are still rotary phones in use out there these days.. probably built better that any of the new phones.. good luck

 

You are exactly right , of all the new phones i have in the house this one works the best. my wife just doesn't want out on display. Thanks for all your help

 

off course the rotary cost more than .98 to make and was designed to last more than a month.

the design paramters where to put it in , rent it to you (you couldnt own your own ) and collect the monthly rental forever without everr having to service it

 

The best deals on the planet were when the telephone company first gave you the option of buying the equipment installed in your house. For a fee, you could buy their equipment as is, as installed, as working. Many people did just that, and continued to use the equipment for years and years. Some people are still using the same equipment more than 20 years later.

 

and folks like me bought the stuff that was returned to the phone company then resold it for good $$$$.

 

This supplements "furds" input on 07-20-06 01:38 PM.

We are working with a late era "Western Electric" Model 500 instrument: I date it to the late 70's as it is fitted with modular plugs.

Now: how to remove the dialing wheel?

We found that it was first necessary to rotate the dial completely clockwise (as if dialing a "0" and beyond) until it would go no further: and then we inserted a small paper-clip into the hole located between the "9" and the "0". Once the detent is depressed with the paperclip, one is then able to continue to continue to rotate the dial even further clockwise - at which point it easily pops off.



This is my best effort to capture the inner workings of the dial mechanism: I wish that doityourself-com permitted uploading of the image?




Other links:

http://www.dmine.com/phworld/pictures/weco/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Electric

http://www.arctos.com/dial/

 

Hello,
Does anyone have any idea how to remove the number card? This is a Nortel 500 series telephone and there are two pinholes on the rotary as you can see in the photo.

The trick above did not work for me.

 

Hi Lektem,

That's a lovely picture. I have identical but in beige, the red is great looking.

Just now I was doing this (Extracting the number card).

Ignore the pinhole between 3 and 4. It distracted me too. That hole seems to be to allow you to pop out the card undamaged after you've removed the dial from the phone base.

The pinhole to disengage the dial and access the card is between 9 and 0 at resting. This is what I had to do:

Turn the dial all the way around as if dialing 0 then further until stop.

Insert paperclip or stronger into the hole mentioned. Press quite hard (Try a drawing pin etc if you can't press hard enough.)

Peer under the dial where the pinhole is and you'll see the spring mechanism at work.

When the pin has depressed the spring far enough, turn the dial just a little bit more past 0 and it will just disengage.

Replacing it is even easier, just peer under the dial and see the mecahnism, then operate in the reverse direction.

I'm hoping this lovely beige beast will work with my new VOIP hardware.

 

You won't be able to dial out with the rotary dial unless your ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter) accepts pulse dialing and I don't know of any that do. Other than that it should work just fine.

 

I was curios about Furds response since I have no experience with rotary dial on vonage

according to my google search it should work

can rotary-dial phone work on Vonage's network?

Vonage I have an old american rotary dial phone in my kitchen, and it works fine with Vonage

so it may work , if it doesn't there are converters available that will convert the pulse output from your dial to DTMF

when I get a chance Ill try a rotary dial on my Magic jack and report back on what happens

(off course on the magic jack you could alwys dial with the soft phone )

 

Hey Furd, Mango Man,

Yeah, that is true. Outgoing calls won't work unmodified. But I'm researching how to install a 'Rotatone' pulse to tone converter inside. There's a ton of space inside the case. Also it's recommended to replace the transmitter (Microphone) in the handset also.

The ATA I'm waiting for is a Linksys PAP2-NA, which won't do pulse dialing I'm quite sure. I believe the phone I have is a Northern Telecom Series 500. It's not particularly old but I just love the style of it. It has a wiring diagram inside the case!



As soon as I track down the exact wiring configuration for the Rotatone device in this phone and decide what other components are needed I'm told I can make it work on modern lines or into the ATA.

The Rotatone device supports 7 stored numbers, and even a cool hotline number you can programme into it so it dials as soon as you lift the receiver! Even the programming is done with the dial, it's quite neat if I can get it to work.
http://www.wedidit.ca/Product%20Imag...n%20manual.pdf

 

Just wanted to say thank you for this info!! My husband works in the art department on movie sets and was faced with the challenge of repainting a rotary phone, and needed to remove the dial to do so. He called me to surf the web for him, and I finally found this site. I read the excerpt above this one and it didn't work. I finally scrolled down a tad and discovered this answer. It worked perfectly and saved him a lot of grief. Thanks for the help!!

 

My cable company (Comcast) installed an RCA (by Thompson) model DHG-535-2 when I converted over to cable-telephone service. It is a two line phone "modem" and IT DOES support both rotary and Touch-Tone dialing on BOTH phone lines. I am happily using Touch-Tone service on one line (a Panasonic Dect 6.0 wireless system) and a late model (1989) Northern Electric 500 desk set (made in Canada - I am located in the U.S.) rotary telephone on the other line. Both work perfectly and I am extremely happy!

 

Tried a Rotatone on a Western Electric 302 and I could NOT get it to work. I cleaned off the points and everything on the dialer electrics (switch and relay) still no-go. Returned the Rotatone.

 

I think another forum may be better on this:
Rotary Phone Forum - Index

dsk

 

could you please detail the alignment of the dial.... i have just reinstalled the spring in the dial assembly. after that the dial is not working properly.. always the number i dial to is getting connected to a wwrong number... i am not sure what exactly is wrong. please help. may be i can attach some snaps. this is an old model used in india(Make by ITI).