sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems Antique Telephones What type of vintage device is this?

Hi all,
I have what I thought was a field phone, others say it is a line tester, this has been my quest for months. All I know is that it came out of a cottage in the Lake of the woods in the early 70's. I will include photos of the unit



Any help or direction I can get will be much appreciated

Nice! I would vote for it being a piece of test equipment, basically a butt-set unit designed to work on 4 wire circuits. What is inside the metal chassis?

There is also a good chance that there is a small schematic printed on a label inside said chassis, a common trait of equipment of that era. If there is, it might tell you everything you want to know.

The number stamped on the chassis is reminiscent of Western Electric numbering of that era. I don't know if Northern Telecom used similar numberings. Is there a manufacturer's logo anywhere, even possibly inside the metal chassis? (I'm dying to see inside the chassis, in case you haven't guessed...)

By the way, Welcome to The Forum!!!

Jim
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Speaking from a secure undisclosed location.

Some interior pics, this whole search is slowly making me bonkers



I can find no manufacturers mark other than the Northern Electric logo on the handset, the handset itself does have a button that you would depress to talk???

Keep the input coming, Thanks for the welcome

It appears that it uses a pair of 'D' cells. And a rather large oil capacitor. And the item mounted next to the capacitor is a relay? And at least two dangling wires that would seem to indicate something missing?

Hi, The wires may appear dangling but all wires are attached and fastened

It is definitely a self-powered talk set for a four-wire circuit. The transmit/receive from the handset is equalized, then split over either a two-wire or four-wire span based upon the switch setting. My guess is that it was used by cable technicians to communicate over especially long spans.

The large cylinder is a transformer to provide the equalization and the smaller cylinder is a capacitor to minimize the loud click that would be heard when initially connecting to a dry pair.

My guess would be a field set, here is a link to one that looks similar to it but older and was used in the WW II time frame.

https://www.jitterbuzz.com/indtel.html#field

Thanks for all the help so far, its amazing how hard it has been to find one exactly like or very similar to the unit I own

Sorry to hijack this thread, but Russ, what a fun site! I especially enjoyed the videos. How to use the dial phone (1927) besides being wonderful in and of itself, has additional videos available after watching it to the end. I never thought much about the early dial phones saying "Wait for dial tone" until now. I heartly recommend this link to every member!
:dance:

Yea it is very interesting, I found it a few years back.