atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Telephone Repairs & Equipment Magicall electronic autodialer

I have some Magicall autodialers Model E3 dated 10/73. All the parts are separate having been cut off. The rotary dial plugs in to the main unit so that is not a problem. Does anyone have any idea how to hook up the power supply to the main unit and how is the main unit connected to a telephone or company line? Does anyone know how to program the units? Thanks for any help.

Gee, this must be a "tuffie" or everyone is uninterested. Here's what I found out so far: I examined the power supply and found four connections - R, G, Y, and B. I then opened the main unit and found a corresponding terminal toward the base. I hooked up these wires and actually got one of them to work, at least make all the right noises. I still don't know how to hook this up into the phone system. It has six wires and they are all connected inside the main unit. Could this be for a 1A2 system? The yellow and black wires were taped together. Could that mean they weren't used? Any ideas, anyone?

The "Magicall" is a Bell System Dialer Unit that was manufactured by DASA Corporation (Andover, Massachusetts) for Western Electric. The DASA Corporation doesn't appear to be in business anymore, thus the schematics would/will be difficult to find.

Apparently this is a dialer that was used in conjunction with an intrusion detecting device, i.e. burglar alarm.

There are lots of modern devices that do the same thing, so I would feel free to experiment with that old junk to your heart's content.

If it is an intrusion-detection device, chances are that it's a device that was developed prior to the USOC/RJ program. Based upon the date code of manufacture that you mentioned, that's a fairly safe bet. Without going into that, you probably need to have the phone line enter this unit straight from the CO on one pair of terminals. The yellow and black terminals were probably just for A leads, so disregard them for now. Another pair of terminals would bring the CO line back out of the dialer toward the key system or stations using that line.

By routing the line through the dialer first, this would ensure that it would have priority control over the line in the event of an intrusion. It would cut off any calls in progress and allow the dialer to re-seize the line to dial the emergency call out. Today's emergency dialers are connected through industry-standard RJ31X or RJ38X jacks.

It's not that we aren't interested in assisting, but some of these questions revolve around 35+ year-old equipment. Sometimes, we have to do research or dig into archived manuals to obtain an answer. Sorry for our delay.

I found prints for a "Call-a-matic", a "Rapidial", various "Touch-a-matics" and a bunch of 660 type dialer sets.

If you have any part numbers or pictures, post them. We'll see what we can do.


Sam

This is not a cut and dry situation.
There are many ways to wire this device but
it has to do with what power supply and the issue of it, because there is several rev/issues of this unit.

Connecting the main unit to a phone, keyset whatever also has different wiring options.

I cant promise,but will try and scan this information from Installation manual, and fax it to you.

I do have the manuals but they are faded and yellowed.

I got rid of most old stuff years ago, but still have a few.

It is found in General Tel. of IL. Key telephone System handbook.

Thank you all for your input. Here's what I can add. I don't believe this had anything to do with an intrusion device/detector. I was able to find some info from a British Telecom website as they were used in England also. However, the info posted does not match the operating reality so was not only of no use, but actually potentially harmful.

You are right, the manufacturer, DASA Corp. is no longer in business but I don't know whether it was absorbed or merged or simply ceased operations. I assume the latter because they have lost patent protection on some of their patents.

The Magicall Autodialer was simply this: an electromechanical autodialer of stored pulse-dialed numbers. It was used for businesses that dialed a lot of numbers and in those days before touch-tone dialing, it could save a lot of time. However, this device was almost a dinosaur when it came out - touchtone dialing and other simpler means soon made this machine obsolete: speed dialing from the telephone company, WE's punch card dialer phone, and then the Touch-a-matic to name a few.

I seem to have it connected to the power supply OK, but I still need to know how it hooks up to the CO line. Any help would be appreciated. I would be happy to have STS E fax the info to me and I will e-mail him my fax number.

Take a look at the US Patent Office's information for this device . Under "Background of the Invention", you'll see the Magicall trademark reference. Also, the "Assignee" shown for this patent is the DASA Corporation. Read everything under the Claims section and see if this doesn't sound like the hardware you've got.

You can create a free account here , which gives you access to any images that were submitted during the patent process. Maybe you'll get lucky and run across a schematic or two!

BTW, a site search for Magicall gives a total of four patents, most of which where filed in the early 70's (which squares with the manufactured date on your product). Here is a list of those patents.

I saw the thing on free patents on line website. Didn't find any schematics but my problem now is really finding how to hook them up to different phones.. The Magicall seems to have been an add-on device to older phones.

I found a couple of prints for adding a Magical Dialer to Logic sets. I dont know if this will help you but here they are. Sorry I dont have a scanner so I took a picture.