ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades ZYLMURBAFI

Yeah the Northern Telecom version that P+T had here had 2 bells at the back and the network circuitry was under clear plastic.

It had no letters at all. Not just missing OPER

Letter codes were never used here. They're used for advertising purposes a lot these days and since the 80s eircom phones have had them printed on. You get plenty of 1800-CHORUS or 1800-EIRCOM .. 1850-4COFFEE etc. Lots of US version phones hit the market here too during the 80s they worked perfectly except for 1 minor detail.. "Flash" would hang up on the call rather than answer call waiting.. easily over come by just quickly tapping the "hook". The equivilant of "Flash" here is basically a pulse dialled 1. They ship in English with RJ11 plugs so they're perfect for the job British imports often wouldn't ring even with adaptors.

There were and are lots of north american phones around working quite happily on eircom lines.

Loads of US GE Caller ID moduels and phones too. they seem happy enough to work with irish caller ID

The lines here seem to accept pretty much any type of dialling.. Have tried all the settings..tone dialling as as long as it's at least 20ms with 10ms gaps. min is understood.
Pulse dialling at any speed.. there's a japanese phone here with very fast pulsing and it works fine.

What would sometimes throw US modems is the "routing tone" that switches here can produce if they're particularly busy or waiting for something.. I think you get silence elsewhere?

Someone recorded what it's like calling a mobile phone from what I'd guess was an Irish Alcatel E10 exchange... it plays the routing tone while waiting for the GSM network to send a ringing signal..
http://telephonetribute.com/audio/irish_callingcell.wav
Same in France?

Couple of other weird tones I've only heard in Ireland
Unconditional call forwarding active: http://telephonetribute.com/audio/irish_forwardingactive.wav

and Message waiting http://telephonetribute.com/audio/irish_messagewaiting.wav

Modems & faxes seem to see it as a continious dial tone as there are no gaps and generally work fine with it.


[This message has been edited by djk (edited 05-07-2003).]

Paul,

Yup...that's the same phone I'm looking for parts for. Do you have any idea where I could get them?

I also need the screws that hold the ringer hammer (with the coils) assembly to the base...

DJK,
Yes, the rapid routing tone is also a feature of the French network, but we've never had it in Britain. These days, of course, with everything digital calls to regular landlines anywhere in the country start ringing almost as soon as you take your finger off the last digit, but back in the Strowger days all you'd get between dialing and ringing starting was the background sounds of switches stepping and trunk noise. Calls to cellular phones these days generally just give a few seconds silence while the system contacts the phone to start the ringing.

Lines with voicemail here use an interrupted dial-tone as the message-waiting indicator, the timing making it sound very similar to an American busy signal. Some modems have problems with that, and report no dial tone.

The CO equipment here has similar problems with the the flash/recall timing. On some imported phones it's impossible to use the recall feature, and you have to just flash the hook-switch instead. The default flash setting on many modems is also too long for the British system.

Sven,
I'm afraid I don't have any of the spares you're looking for that I could offer you at the moment, but 700-series phones are pretty easy to come by here. Have you tried searching the telephone category on eBay (use the "located in U.K." option). There are almost always loads of 746 phones on there, and if you can find one with a dirty or damaged case you could pick it up very cheaply and use it for spares.

Paul,

Normally, at least if you're calling a fixed line you'll just get a ringing tone once you dial the last digit but the routing tone does appear now and again.

It was much more common when there were still a few crossbars on the local network. The "parent" Alcatel E10 would produce it for a few seconds while the older exchange was doing the final local switching stages.

You'll still hear it before a mobile phone rings (on some exchanges). It also pops up if you call a number that lets calls queue until a hunt group line is free e.g. some operator services that don't have "please hold" announcements in place.

Also international calls to countries that either have old networks or where connection isn't instantanious.

basically anytime there might be a silence before the ring tone/engaged tone/announcement.

Although I've noticed a couple of "bebebe"s when calling normal land lines from some remote rural spots. Not sure why.. there are no non-digital switches and signalling is all SS7.. maybe just an early E10 with slow processing.

The older (long gone) Ericsson ARF crossbars used to make a soft very regular "tick tick tick" noise while they were switching. I don't think it was just the noise generated by the switching process it was actually a specifically generated "tone". Sounded like a clock ticking followed by a clunk (generated by the switching process) before ringing.

Strangely enough ARFs usually accepted tone dialling but would return the "wrong number tritone" if you dialled * or # or just ignore it completely. The number didn't seem to be translated to pulses either, at least not that you could hear. I think they were quite possibily, like in Australia, retrofitted with computer controls and some electronic registers etc. i.e. kinda hybrid crossbars. I know they could provide call diversion and call waiting.
I'd say that the partial computerisation was prob. so they could handle non-unit based billing and detailed statements etc. I doubt provision of tone dialling was a huge priority.

[This message has been edited by djk (edited 05-09-2003).]

djk,
I like that green Ireland phone!.
I once saw over here, a telephone hand set that was in the shape of New Zealand, under the name "Kiwi-Phone".
It died a death though, it was found that the hand-set was too cumbersome and way out of proportion.
If you can imagine the shape of New Zealand, the earpiece was in Auckland and the mouthpiece was in Invercargill.
I've never seen one since, oddly enough!.