A Small Pitch For Another Good Forum

[19&41]

I advertised this forum there, so I thought I would return the favor. If any of you have interest in old phones and everything about them, the Classic Rotary Phone Forum is a site with friendly folks and tons of useful information and history. They are manually taking membership applications. Have a look!

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/foru ... 7484038242&

[electra225]

I have a Kellogg rotary that was my grandfather's. I probably should send it to you. It has the clear plastic rotary dial, so I'm guessing it's from the 1960's.

[19&41]

If you can think of something you would want in exchange for it. You might have a look at the site. You never know what you might find...

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/foru ... ic=12198.0

[William]

That is a cool site. And, Magnavox made phones!

Bill

[TC Chris]

My shop phone is the Western Electric dial wall phone that my parents had installed when they bought their first house in 1951. It's black, of course. In 1951, telephones were black. Their second house, the one we're working on closing up now, has a 1972 dial wall phone. White. Clear plastic dial. There was progress in those 20 years.

One advantage of the old ones: voice intelligibility was built into them; that's what they were engineered for. My office got a new phone system last year. This is a VOIP system. Digital, you know, so it has to be perfect. Except that voices were all muddled on the new ones. The tech guy from the vendor insisted that could not be true. The new phones are digital, after all, so they cannot be deficient. They sent me a new handset. Same muddle. So I tried the handset from the old phones. Ah, better, but it did not fit in the cradle of the new phones. Eventually the boss bought me a headset with a boom mic. Much better, but still not equivalent to a good landline phone. I've had the same experience with cell phones. Each newer model seems to take a dive in audio intelligibility. This is not just my ears getting old (which they are). The new and old versions can be compared and the new ones are worse.

Chris Campbell

[19&41]

I too, believed that in the old days all phones were black. It has surprised me to find out about all the colors that phones were offered in then. I learn something new about the business each time I check the site.

[Firedome]

No doubt whatever that the old WE phones in particular had superior audio quality, that why we have 5 original WE
phones, all '60s/70s touch-tone button models: Princess, Trimline, 1554 wall models, we prefer the convenience of push buttons, so even though we still have some dial models in storage, I'm much too impatient to wait for that finger-wheel to schlep around each time for a number! Love our old phones, my old ears will be very disappointed if landline phones are ever discontinued!

[William]

I too am old fashioned, and my ears are not what they once were. I have trouble understanding people, not all but some, when I use my walk-a-about/cordless house phone. If I cannot understand them I will ask them to hold while I go to the old fashioned phones that are in the house. That usually does the trick and I can understand them just fine. The only exception is when someone calls on their cell and they have the mouth piece of that cell phone down by there Adam's apple. All I hear then is garble.

Bill

[19&41]

I have a small collection of phones and use a Panasonic PBX unit to connect any number of them to my VOIP set. It converts the dial pulses to a tone equivalent and bolsters the line current.

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/foru ... ic=13685.0