Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Fixing a Rotary Phone

It just goes to show you can't rely on others to do things for you. I couldn't find any antique refurbish shops in my area, and I really wanted my rotary phones fixed. When I want something done, and there is no one around to do it, it means it is time to work on it myself. Plus, I learn a little something every time I do a project. My project this time was on a Western Electric 554 rotary phone (Seen above).

Here is the breakdown. The phone I had had all the parts in tact and the wire running out of it was cut. So this leaves me one option: rewire. This phone is on an older system and uses RJ11/RJ14 cables. These cables are composed of Red, Yellow, Green, and Black wires. To get the system working again, I simply had to connect the wires together by twisting them around each other. It took a little while because the newer wire that I bought from RadioShack was very thin so it was hard to grip it. If you needed to crimp the wire with a new head, which luckily I didn't, it would be easy to just google the proper wiring alignment. Now I only have one rotary phone left to rewire and get it working, that one is 20 years older, so it may be a bit more challenging.

~Dave

PS: Due to my life getting very busy I will be doing updates less frequently until things calm down.

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