jb-alert: Yes, I've seen reference to wiring into the phone directly with a separate cable, and I may try to go that route if I have to. Hoping to avoid that, preferring the 'plug and go' approach.

Today I received the custom boards from the printer, and soldered it up, and hooked up the speaker, transmitter, 18VAC power supply:

[Linked Image from seriss.com]

For testing I used a 565 (no letter suffixes) to see what would happen. It's a phone I purchased for $5 at a recent phone show, needed a bit of work as I recall.

Seemed to work pretty well for a first time test.. well, in all the important aspects anyway:

  • With the phone on-hook, when I hit "ON" I get a really nice sounding dial tone through the speaker
  • The selected line (Line #1) lights up while on hook
  • With a test call, I can hear voice via the "transmitter", confirming 2 way conversation
  • If I put the transmitter near the speaker, I get cool spaceman feedback (as expected)


What doesn't work, and I guess is something I have to trace out, is releasing the ON button hangs up again. So I have to hold down "ON" for the system to work.

I believe hitting ON is supposed to toggle a locking relay, and that one aspect is basically not happening. Not sure if it's a loose plug, wiring fault in my 82b block (hope not!), or something wrong with either the phone's internal wiring of the violet pairs, or a fault in my 108b speaker equipment. (I don't really have a way to verify if the equipment itself is at fault.)

Anyway, not bad for a first test; I was expecting less, lol. I'll see if I can figure out why the "ON" button isn't locking on. Here's a pic of the whole initial test setup:
[Linked Image from seriss.com]