I have just recently acquired a nice Bakelite telephone, almost identical to this one.


I would very much like to get it connected up so we can use it as our normal telephone, and although I have Googled it to no end, I am having real difficulty.
I can get all sorts of info from American, Australian or other countries sites, but they are of course different to here.

Anybody know anything about where/who to ask or how to do it?
If you think it is just a matter of asking Swisscom, well, that failed too, I think i called on the wrong day or something, or perhaps they are just too young to even have heard of them, I don't know, but there was no help from them whatsoever.

Any ideas would be super.

Have you tried Swisscom ? After all, this looks like the standard model that Switzerland had for I don't know how many years. Since you were not allowed to own telephones in these days and they had to make sure the phones always were in good working order, there may be still a few Swisscom employees who haven't retired yet.

Correction:

Have you tried to find any elderly Swisscom employees who haven't retired yet ? After all, this looks like the standard model that Switzerland had for I don't know how many years. Since you were not allowed to own telephones in those days , they had to make sure the phones always were in good working order.

I could have corrected this without any comment but that would have made nonsense of your corrections, the Groan wouldn't have made sense any more and I simply didn't want to spoil everybody's fun.

Assuming it's not a fake modern copy, the only question (apart from learning how to wire the correct plug onto the telephone cord) is ... does the network here still support pulse dialling?

I suppose either Swisscom or one of their recognised 'concessionaires' would know.

It's always nice to read the initial post before responding, don't you think?

Now, where were we?

Try this route: http://www.swisscom.ch/res/beratung-...khst/index.htm

Fill in the requested information and be sure to detail your needs in the box. That way whoever contacts you probably has the knowledge to answer your questions.

What effort! I prefer the groan button for its mystique.

Yes it does. If you are with Swisscom or with Sunrise it works (no restrictions whatsoever).

With Cablecom certain restrictions apply (ie, you can't dial, but you can talk)

Also, no matter what provider you have, the automatic menu type things don't work (for example, dial 1 for English, 2 for German etc) so it helps to have a modern phone as a backup for those situations.

Otherwise I have several classic phones in my place and I find them much more stylish than the modern ones.

Does the telephone have a plug attached. If yes, you can get adapters to fit the ld style plugs into the newer style sockets (and vice versa).

If it doesn't have a plug attached, you can buy one in an electronics store (my favourite is Pusterla on Holhstrasse in Zurich). The plug should come with an instruction sheet telling you what colour goes where. I've wired up many phones myself and never had any trouble.

Another place where you might be able to get help

http://www.classictelephon.ch/

The guy who runs this store is very helpful and has loads of spares and things that are no longer available from Swisscom and other official channels. He can also offer advice.

While Higa may not have read my whole post so very thoroughly, I do appreciate that they exhumed my shelved query, I now have all these excellent tips to go on and am sure I'll be able to get it going in the near future thanks to all these leads.

I'm absolutely delighted, I thought it was destined to be my "hotline to God", forever more, cheers all

P.S. It is genuine ( I wouldn't have asked otherwise and the fake ones I expect, would have the appropriate modifications).
It's also just got a raw cable with two separating wires with metal "U's" on the end, so Amogles, you are a champion for your answers, muchas gracias.

Pleased to help

You're very lucky that the cable is still attached. Attaching a new cable to the phone is the difficult bit (I'm speaking from experience). Attaching a plug to the cable is far easier. In fact the cable has only two wires. The plug has four prongs but only two are actually used (can't remember which ones) and once you have identified these, it doesn't actually matter which cable goes where as the phone works either way.