Can a rotary phone be hooked up to wireless phone jack system and work? Answered
I have an old retro looking rotary phone I want to hook up as simply as possible because I don't want to run a phone wire if I don't have to because the area is not that easily accessed.
+1. If you really want to use a retro phone with pulse dial, you can buy a lowcost adapter which changes it to tone for you.
Um. Wait. What exactly is a "wireless phone jack system"? The term "jack" refers to the connectors used for wires.
A wireless phone jack is one that plugs into a power outlet not a house jack for easy hook up of another phone.
Fascinating! Thank you very much; I've never run into this before. So how does it connect to the phone system? Is there a base station that you plug into both the wall and to a regular phone jack?
And does the wireless block that plugs into a wall outlet also have a regular RJ-45 socket (phone jack) on it?
Yes a regular modern phone can be hooked up just by plugging it in.
It has a base unit which plugs into any outlet near an existing phone jack then plug extension jack into any other outlet in the house and add a phone. Except the phone I wanted to add is a rotary so it won't work.
Ah, I see. The problem is most probably with that "extension jack." It takes the (tone) signal off the RJ-45 and puts it onto the house wiring as a high-frequency digital modulation on top of the 60 Hz AC.
I doubt that the electronics in the extension box is set up to deal with rotary-style analog inputs.
its a 'powerline data' connection -- common for extending a phone line to where you don't have one, but as I commented below, I don't think the little adapter gadgets they make these days are designed for the high voltage drive for an old rotary phone.
It should work - the protocol/wiring hasn't changed in years -- the remote box might not have enough power to fire the ring solenoid (about 70v) but it *should* work
addendum: many phone providers do not support pulse dial (not touch-tone) any longer -- after the switch to digital backends at the phone trunk, pulse was mostly phased out.
It did work in regular house phone jacks so it does work just not with the wireless jack.
Discussions
+1. If you really want to use a retro phone with pulse dial, you can buy a lowcost adapter which changes it to tone for you.
Um. Wait. What exactly is a "wireless phone jack system"? The term "jack" refers to the connectors used for wires.
A wireless phone jack is one that plugs into a power outlet not a house jack for easy hook up of another phone.
Fascinating! Thank you very much; I've never run into this before. So how does it connect to the phone system? Is there a base station that you plug into both the wall and to a regular phone jack?
And does the wireless block that plugs into a wall outlet also have a regular RJ-45 socket (phone jack) on it?
Yes a regular modern phone can be hooked up just by plugging it in.
It has a base unit which plugs into any outlet near an existing phone jack then plug extension jack into any other outlet in the house and add a phone. Except the phone I wanted to add is a rotary so it won't work.
Ah, I see. The problem is most probably with that "extension jack." It takes the (tone) signal off the RJ-45 and puts it onto the house wiring as a high-frequency digital modulation on top of the 60 Hz AC.
I doubt that the electronics in the extension box is set up to deal with rotary-style analog inputs.
its a 'powerline data' connection -- common for extending a phone line to where you don't have one, but as I commented below, I don't think the little adapter gadgets they make these days are designed for the high voltage drive for an old rotary phone.
It should work - the protocol/wiring hasn't changed in years -- the remote box might not have enough power to fire the ring solenoid (about 70v) but it *should* work
addendum: many phone providers do not support pulse dial (not touch-tone) any longer -- after the switch to digital backends at the phone trunk, pulse was mostly phased out.
It did work in regular house phone jacks so it does work just not with the wireless jack.