Western Electric hand telephone set of c. 1930 with its ringer box or subscriber set in the background.
A ringer box is a telephone signaling device, similar to a bell box. It usually contains an electromechanical gong and was used with most early desk stand telephones, such as candlestick telephones and the Western Electric type Western Electric hand telephone sets, which were too small to hold a ringer and other required electrical components. Many pay station telephones also used a separate ringer box.
In telephony, ringer boxes and similar devices are often categorized as subscriber sets.
The ringer contained in the ringer box alerts a call recipient to incoming calls by ringing one or more metallic bells emitting a ringtone.
Ringers were commonly placed in the same housing as the subscriber set, which consisted of other electrical components, such as induction coils, capacitors, and, if required, a magneto generator. The subscriber set interfaced a telephone set to the telephone network, while magneto generators were used in a manual exchange to generate a remote ring signal.
The Western Electric 302-type telephone was the first widely used Bell System telephone to include the ringer and other subscriber set components inside the housing of the telephone set. Almost all telephones manufactured since have an internal phone ringer.
Components
Western Electric common battery subscriber set of c. 1930, containing a bell ringer, an induction coil, and a condenser, mounted underneath the wooden connecting board.
A ringer box consists of a case made of wood, metal, or plastic, containing bells or gongs and an electromagnetically-driven clapper which strikes the gongs when actuated. The electromagnet of the clapper responds to the alternating current sent from a central office exchange or another phone via the telephone network wiring. The direct current required by the telephone's audio circuitry is blocked with a capacitor before entering the ringer to prevent the ringer from being triggered by circuit interruptions and pulse dialing. Typical ring signals ranged from 60 to over 100 Volts at a frequency of 20-30 Hertz.
A rotary dial is a component of a telephone or a telephone switchboard that implements a signaling technology in telecommunications known as pulse dialing. It is used when initiating a telephone call to transmit the destination telephone number to a telephone exchange.
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into electronic signals that are transmitted via cables and other communication channels to another telephone which reproduces the sound to the receiving user. The term is derived from Greek: τῆλε and φωνή, together meaning distant voice. A common short form of the term is phone, which came into use early in the telephone's history.
In telephony, ringdown is a method of signaling an operator in which telephone ringing current is sent over the line to operate a lamp or cause the operation of a self-locking relay known as a drop.
The ringer equivalence number (REN) is a telecommunications measure that represents the electrical loading effect of a telephone ringer on a telephone line. In the United States, ringer equivalence was first defined by U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, Title 47, Part 68, based on the load that a standard Bell System model 500 telephone represented, and was later determined in accordance with specification ANSI/TIA-968-B. Measurement systems analogous to the REN exist internationally.
A ringtone, ring tone or ring is the sound made by a telephone to indicate an incoming call. Originally referring to and made by the electromechanical striking of bells, the term now refers to any sound on any device alerting of a new incoming call—up to and including recordings of original telephone bells.
A telephone call is a connection over a telephone network between the called party and the calling party.
This timeline of the telephone covers landline, radio, and cellular telephony technologies and provides many important dates in the history of the telephone.
The Western Electric model 500 telephone series was the standard domestic desk telephone set issued by the Bell System in North America from 1950 through the 1984 Bell System divestiture. Millions of model 500-series phones were produced and were present in most homes in North America. Many are still in use today because of their durability and ample availability. Its modular construction compared to previous types simplified manufacture and repair, and facilitated a large number of variants with added features.
The model 302 telephone is a desk set telephone that was manufactured in the United States by Western Electric from 1937 until 1955, and by Northern Electric in Canada until the late 1950s, until well after the introduction of the 500-type telephone in 1949. The sets were routinely refurbished into the 1960s. It was one of the most widely used American combined telephone sets to include the ringer and network circuitry in the same telephone housing.
An electric bell is a mechanical or electronic bell that functions by means of an electromagnet. When an electric current is applied, it produces a repetitive buzzing, clanging or ringing sound. Electromechanical bells have been widely used at railroad crossings, in telephones, fire and burglar alarms, as school bells, doorbells, and alarms in industrial plants, since the late 1800s, but they are now being widely replaced with electronic sounders. An electric bell consists of one or more electromagnets, made of a coil of insulated wire around an iron bar, which attract an iron strip armature with a clapper.
Design Line, also known as Deco-Tel, is a brand name that AT&T has used for several of its specialty telephone designs to fulfill the demand by customers for more variety in telephone models.
The 1A2 Key Telephone System is a business telephone system developed and distributed by the Western Electric Company for the Bell System.
This history of the telephone chronicles the development of the electrical telephone, and includes a brief overview of its predecessors. The first telephone patent was granted to Alexander Graham Bell in 1876.
The General Post Office (GPO) of the United Kingdom carried the sole responsibility for providing telecommunication services across the country with the exception of Hull. The GPO issued a range of telephone instruments to telephone service subscribers that were matched in function and performance to its telephone exchanges.
British telephone sockets were introduced in their current plug and socket form on 19 November 1981 by British Telecom to allow subscribers to connect their own telephones. The connectors are specified in British Standard BS 6312. Electrical characteristics of the telephone interface are specified by individual network operators, e.g. in British Telecom's SIN 351. Electrical characteristics required of British telephones used to be specified in BS 6305.
The candlestick telephone is a style of telephone that was common from the late 1890s to the 1940s. A candlestick telephone is also often referred to as a desk stand, an upright, or a stick phone. Candlestick telephones featured a mouth piece (transmitter) mounted at the top of the stand, and a receiver that was held by the user to the ear during a call. When the telephone was not in use, the receiver rested in the fork of the switch hook protruding to the side of the stand, thereby disconnecting the audio circuit from the telephone network.
Ringing is a telecommunication signal that causes a bell or other device to alert a telephone subscriber to an incoming telephone call. Historically, this entailed sending a high-voltage alternating current over the telephone line to a customer station which contained an electromagnetic bell. It is therefore also commonly referred to as power ringing, to distinguish it from another signal, audible ringing, or ringing tone, which is sent to the originating caller to indicate that the destination telephone is in fact ringing.
A telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It interconnects telephone subscriber lines or virtual circuits of digital systems to establish telephone calls between subscribers.
A telephone magneto is a hand-cranked electrical generator that uses permanent magnets to produce alternating current from a rotating armature. In early telegraphy, magnetos were used to power instruments, while in telephony they were used to generate electrical current to drive electromechanical ringers in telephone sets and activate signals on operator consoles.
The Panel Machine Switching System is a type of automatic telephone exchange for urban service that was used in the Bell System in the United States for seven decades. The first semi-mechanical types of this design were installed in 1915 in Newark, New Jersey, and the last were retired in the same city in 1983.
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