atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems 1A2 and Comkey Telephones & Systems Cortelco 2566 1A2 5 line phone - Convert to UK?

Hi,

Newby here. Am in the UK and have been looking for an original old US phone for a while.
Today I found a brand new and boxed ITT Cortelco 2566 in a junk shop for a bargain £6.
I need to convert this to connect to a UK BT socket (or standard US socket). Currently it has a long ablong black plug on the end of the cable.
Can anyone help me please?
Kind regards,

Mike.

Mike:

Welcome to the wacky world of old phones.

The easiest way to adapt the phone is to install a short length of 25-pair key system cable, equipped with a connector that will mate with the plug on your phone.

This will allow you to find the Tip & Ring leads (or A & B as they are called in your country) for the first (or any) of the line keys.

Does the plug on your phone look like the male plug in this photo?



Cables with one female connector and a stub end are available cheaply here in the states. If you do a search in Ebay you'll find them, or one of us can ship you one.

This method will allow you to place and receive calls, but the lamps under the buttons will not work, nor will the HOLD feature. To get all that working, you'll need a Key Service Unit (KSU) and one or more Key Telephone Units (KTU). All this stuff is available over here...not sure over where you are. There are members of several antique telephone collecting clubs in the UK and in Europe. They can be of help, too.

Thanks for your help Arthur, yes the connector is exactly as you have pictured above.
So far I have managed to get a dialling tone on the phone by connecting my phone line to the white/blue and blue/white cables in the phone.
I have tried to connect the yellow/grey and grey/yellow cables also to my phone line to get the bell working, but no success with this..so far.!
Do I need to keep the grey/yellow and yellow/grey cables connected to the where they currently are in the phone as when I disonnect them to connect to the blue/white ones I lose the dialling tone?

Kind regards,

Mike.

The white/blue pair is indeed the connection for line 1.

The ringer is factory-wired to the slate/yellow pair. (We say "slate" for "gray" because to abbreviate gray, one needs to use the same two first letters, GR, that are used to abbreviate the color green, so "SLATE is the new GRAY")

Attaching the SL/Y pair to the same terminals as you did the WH/BL pair SHOULD get your phone ringing.

To answer your last question, we need to know how much you understand about telephone circuits. You say that you "lose the dial tone" when you "disconnect them to connect to the blue/white ones." Without knowing what's going on in the phone, it's hard to help.

We can forgive a newbe in the UK; but the correct colors are Yellow Slate & Violet Slate.

Have tried again to get the bell ringing, doesn't seem to work. I can receive and make calls, but bell dead at the moment.
Will keep trying. It's a phone with 5 lines so maybe I'm doing something wrong.
I have little knowledge of phone lines, but did many moons ago convert an old dial GPO phone to work on the then new BT plugin system.

Mike.

I don't think I have a violet/slate. It's after 11pm here so my eyes are tired now! Will keep looking for it..

Mike and Arthur, wasn't there another 'limey' looking for 1A2 phones to work with his KSU recently? I'd suggest a search and contact. He may have a 1-line American telephone and can be a help, as well as swapping phones with you, Mike. Might be the best way for both of you to accomplish your goals. Just a suggestion from a 'colonial'.

I've got the schematic wiring diagram in my hand and there isn't any violet/slate cables mentioned.
The line cord specifies that SL-YL cable goes to terminal RR and YL-SL to terminal (A).
On the diagram the cables coming from the ringer appear to be solid black and solid red.

Mepmoop -

Forget the Violets, I think it was a typo by the poster. Solid Red & solid Black are the Ringer wires. They are connected to the "network' which has some minor components in it - notably a capacitor for the ringer to keep it from shorting out the line.

If connecting the White/Blue and Yellow/Slate to "A" and Blue/White and Slate/Yellow to "B" doesn't produce both Dial Tone and a ringing on incoming then there's a problem.

The ringer is looking for approximately 90Volts AC at 20hz. I know German phones (Telefunken & Normalzeit) used to require 50hz ringers - I thought the British System didn't.

Back in December we helped out someone from the UK who got his phones working (Check out the post in this forum from December titled "Hello and Thank you".

Give it a try and come on back and ask questions, we'll be happy to help.

Sam