pay phones

[Dean901]

Hello I am new to this forum. I was wondering if anyone here has any experiance with western electric pay phones from the late 80's. I just bought one at auction and wired it up with the blue/blue white wire. The phone work's to dial out and receive call's as long as you put in 35 cents. When your call is done the change comes back through the coin return. The problem I am having is if the phone is left to ring until my answering machine pick's up it sounds to the person calling like a modem pick's up? My answering machine never even starts up. I think their must be a modem in the phone? Any ideas how to disconnect this? Any help would be greatly appretiated.

[mdshunk]

Yes, there is a modem in the phone. They used that to audit the coin till, and to schedule coin box pickups. Some models you could remotely change the call costs and local calling zones. The model number would be most helpful.

[Dean901]

I was looking for the model # and for some reason I decided to remove the battery from the circuit board. Now I have some real problems. Is their any way I could just wire this phone to work as a regular phone? I will take pictures and send them to you if you would be willing to help! I would like to keep the dial pad and hook switch and just wire it as is. It must be possible?

[Mr T]

post some pics.

I doubt this is easily possible though. The phones were never designed to be always free. You may be better off, taking all the guts out, hacking up another phone to use the payphone's keypad and hookswitch and ringer if it has one.. most people would never know.

You'd have better luck with a older phone that used DTMF codes to operate. (the kind that Cap'n Crunch became famous for hacking with his blue box)

[Dean901]

Ok, now I will just have to figure out how to wire it up using the pay phones keypad and hook switch. I have a ringer from an old rotary phone that is wired up now. After I removed the battery that was soldered to the circuit board you get a real soft raspy dial tone. But the hook switch or key pad won't work. I have a western electric touch tone that I could use some parts out of.

[Dean901]

Ok, I did a little more research and the phone I have is a Ernest telecom phone. Does any one know of a way I could wire up just the key pad and switch hook and handset and ringer of course?

[mdshunk]

Since you say that it has a battery, it is probably the model 7D or 7D-3. These were very popular phones, many of which continue in service. Since you say that you get the coin back after you make a call, someone's already done some programming on it. They have the grace period set to 999 or somthing like that. These are "smart" pay phones, that you can't really make into a totally normal phone without hacking it up. Setting the grace period high is about the only thing you can do to this phone to make it more like a "normal" phone. The modem will always pick up. The software to program this phone is called "TeleLink". You can pick it up from Ernest or various places on the net. The software costs between $350 and $400 bucks. These phones only fetch 100-125 bucks used anyhow. You can have Earnest program your phone from their site for 20 bucks on your credit card.

[Dean901]

Thanks for your reply. But, How could I hack it up then? I want to make it work. The battery I took out leaked and I would rather bypass the entire circuit board anyway. I bought the phone from an auction for $7.25! So I don't care if I hack it up to make it work. Any ideas?

[Mr T]

Rip the guts out, replace with guts of a 'normal' phone. Your keypad's pinout should be very similar if not the same as the other phone's.

Leaking battery = corrosion = death to the circuit board. Dont even bother with it.

[Dean901]

Am I going to able to use the keypad and hook switch that are in the pay phone? By "guts" do you mean the circuit board and coin mechanism? That's what I want to bypass anyway. I just need to figure out how to wire the keypad, hook switch, receiver, and ringer to the phone line.
Thanks!
I have pictures of the phone if you need them.
Dean

[Mr T]

Lets see the guts!

[Dean901]

Here are the photos. Sorry that I can't get a closer view with my cheap camera!
Thanks for your help.