Hello everybody and Happy New Year to the 1A2 world team.

I have several WE 1A2 phones (2565 hkms and just received "new" big Call Director). I try to use theses phones on the French network (on a single line at home) but the ringers or buzzers never works. I suppose there's different ringing voltages than in the USA (I can see 40V on rings when I receive calls). I can see this voltage from the black and red wires of the ringer (that means they are well connected) but nothing happens on the ringers or buzzers, I tryed everything... Otherwise, everything is OK, I can call and the rest of the phone is OK.

Any ideas ?

The ringer was designed to work on +/- 90V AC @20Hz, the buzzers on either 10V AC (Blue wires) or 18V AC (White wires). Apparently the French systems voltage is completely different. You could try adjusting the bias spring on the ringer to see if you could get any action on it at all, or why not just try replacing the American ringer with one from a French Telephone?

40 volts is barely enough voltage. These are designed to work in the 77-105 volt range. You may be able to tinker with the bias spring on the ringer to loosen the clapper. Aside from that, it's going to be difficult to make them ring on such a low voltage.

Well Ed, I'm glad we think alike.

Sam

Talk about split second precision! Sam beat me to it.

Just barely, apparently.

Sam

I've never heard of the French system supplying such a low ringing voltage. Are you sure the meter you were measuring with is accurate at frequencies much lower than 50Hz, and with 48 to 50V d.c. superimposed?

If the ringing voltage really is that low, could it be a long line which is already heavily loaded by other ringers?

Thanks for your reply.
I'm on the 50V range of the voltmeter and see 40V but on the AC !! Nothing if I check with the DC of the voltmeter. On the 2565, there's a very small ring, that confirms a too low voltage, the one on the Call director don't move at all.

Most of all, I'd like to ear the buzzer. I have the one installed on the Call director, and other one directly purshased new, but none is working. I remember that the one I purshased alone was given for high voltages... If the one on Call director is given for 10V AC, does it mean that I burned it when trying on the line with 40V ?

There's only one phone on the network.

I don't know if the voltmeter is accurate for frequencies lower tha 50Hz, I must say that I don't have a large knowledge on that...

Try unplugging the American phones, plugging in a French phone, ringing it and measure the voltage then. It's possible the American Ringers are loading down the line (wrong frequency?)

Sam

All the French phones I have are too recent to give a separate ringer easy to measure. The only thing I can do is to measure the voltage directly on the 2 wires of the wall. Does it help ?

I have tested the voltages direcly on the wall wires (before a phone) here is all I can see :
- when no ring or calls : +40v in DC mode or 90V in AC mode (but nothing if the wires are inversed in AC).
- when rings on the line : 0V to 40V in AC mode or 40V to 90V if I reverse the wires. 0V to +40V in DC mode.

Back with the Call director, if I measure the ringer wires when rings I have 0V to 40V in AC mode (i can reverse the wires and see the same) but nothing on the DC mode. If no ring, 0V everywhere.

The buzzer is the one I'd most like to ear...

You should not see any AC voltage when the line is idle. By setting your meter to the AC setting, it's just reading the DC voltage and effectively doubling it, giving you a false reading.

It sounds like the 90 volts that you are detecting during the ring cycle is fine. There is an issue of AC frequency though. U.S. straight-line ringers are designed to respond to 17-33 Hz. Being in Europe, there's a good chance that the frequency of the 90 volts is outside of this range.

I do need to ask these questions:

You had mentioned that you were using 2565HKM sets before. Did the ringers work properly in these sets? If so, we may just have an internal wiring issue.

Is the Call Director set new or is it one that was used? If used, there's a good chance that a diode may have been used in the ringer wiring as a field modification.

Let us know and we can dig further.

With my 2565 HKMS and also another but smaller Call Director (Northern Electric) the ringers were just giving a very low ring (every ringer positions tested), just one small movment instead many high I could have with a normal phone. The most important thing I can say is that I had to reverse the wires to have it. That means when I plug the phone on the wall, there's a first ring.

The Call Director is a used unit purshased from ebay.

Is there a way to modify easily the frequencies to meet the 30Hz of the US phones ?

No, they aren't modifiable. Different frequencies require different ringer coils that are no longer manufactured.

You might want to go out on a ledge and try taking the black ringer lead loose from the network and connect it to a good known ground and test. If that doesn't work, try putting the black wire back and do the same thing with the red wire.

It's possible that they still use grounded ringing in France, but I doubt it. It's worth a try.

I'm not very familiar with the switching equipment used in France today, but I believe that at least some central offices are the Ericsson AXE10, which is also used widely here in Britain under the guise of BT's "System Y."

These do employ grounded ringing. On an incoming call, battery is transferred to the tip side (A-wire) of the line, and ringing voltage is applied from the ring side (B-wire) to ground. If you're on a similar arrangement you might find it easier to actually measure the ringing voltage to ground, since you can then do so without the d.c. component affecting the meter.

I remember working on a German Intercom system back in the '60s (Telefunken und Normelzeit, I think). We had to use their phones because the ringing generator wouldn't work American ringers. As I recall it wwasn't voltage, it was the frequency. We needed 20-30hz and they were running on 60hz.

I'm assuming something similar is going on here.

Sam

You could try wiring or finding the correct Buzzer in place of the ringer. Such as A to k or k to A on the set's network with or without the right diode. Ring frequency generator in france is the question here?

Like Ed said the ring generator leaves the office at 105 ac at 17 cycles or hertz in USA.

You could also try to strap a pazio type ringer out out of a cheap single line set. Im sure something would work. But then again, it becomes a hobby like an old train set. You might have to remove the condenser crkt. The a to K or k to A on the phones network

I also suspect that my problem comes from the frequency (but I can't measure). I also tryed to install the buzzer instead of the ringer, but nothing happens. As far as it's not possible to change the frequency, I suppose that I couldn't fix this problem and the best solution is to have 2nd phone (like modern wireless) only for his ringer... Too, I must take care of the equipments because I'm behind a DSL box that gives internet, phone and TV, I remember having damaged a similar unit when playing with the wires of WE phones and ringers... But finally, I'm very happy to got at a reasonable price the black 29 lines Call Director that I was searching since a very a very long time.

Well, good luck with it!

Sam

Stha:

I still think that if you tinker with the ringer's bias spring, you might be able to get it to respond.

If you are worried about damaging the DSL unit, you can always consider using Viking Electronics' #RG-10A ring booster. It is fairly tolerant of voltage/frequency issues on the input side and provides nice and healthy ringing output. It's made specifically for use behind VOIP/ISDN/DSL terminal equipment for this reason.

Check it out Here . If you use it, you won't have any more ringing problems!

Ed:

I tryed with the bias but no results.
Boost Ringing box seems perfect, I will buy and let you know the results.

Thanks

If you monitor the ringer leads with a butt set what do you hear? you should hear a low frequency buzz. A frequency mismatch will keep your ringers from working. If you can locate where the ring current is being supplied at you may be able to replace it with one made in the US. I had the same type of problem when i tried to use an old Harris switche for ring current through an Executone IDS

George, we already touched on the issue of frequency a while back. You are correct, that's likely the issue here. Here is the original post discussing frequency issues:

I got the confirmation that the ringing frequency in France is 50Hz.

That's strange that it would be the same frequency as the AC power distribution network. Regardless, even if it is, that would definitely be the reason that you are having trouble with a U.S. ringer.