VOIP Ready GEC Gecophone Bakelite Telephone
This telephone is fitted with our inDAT Pulse to Tone converter to give you tone dialling and, if you require, 'Star', 'Hash', 'Last Number Redial' and up to seven stored numbers. These options are switchable so the telephone can quickly be customised to your needs.
This is a lovely example of a British Gecophone manufactured by GEC from the 1930s to the 1950s. It was their smaller and neater version of the GPOs combined set. The photographs are of the actual telephone for sale and accurately record its condition.
This telephone is in first class working order and the case has a nice sheen. It also has a fully serviced No.10 dial with an enamel numeric dial plate. All cords have been replaced with our own cords correctly terminated with cotton ties.
The telephone comes complete with our own high quality reproduction paper furniture. The dial label can be customised with an area and telephone number of your choice or you can have the GEC design as shown with your own number.
Our full, top quality restoration includes:
- Brand new quality cotton braided line and handset cords
- High quality correctly fitting replacement transmitter unit
- Fully serviced dial set with professional test equipment
- Quality replacement furniture
- Mechanically polished case
- Quality replacement feet
Restoration Details
•Handsets and cases are stripped of their components and thoroughly cleaned.
•Cases are polished, both mechanically and by hand. It has taken me many years to perfect this technique and it will return the case to the best possible condition. Polishing by hand alone will not achieve the best results.
•All contacts are cleaned, set and polished.
•Dials are stripped, cleaned, inspected, lubricated and rebuilt. This includes the removal and cleaning of the governor, governor cup and main bearing. The contacts are set and the dial speed and MK /BK ratio set. This is an essential part of making a telephone work properly.
•Bell coils are set and any necessary adjustment made so their resistance is suitable for modern networks.
•A new line cord is fitted and the telephone is reassembled with the appropriate wiring alterations made to allow it to function on a pulse dialling system.
•Mouthpiece are fitted with a modern electronic transmitter to provide high quality speech.
•Finally, telephones are tested on a live line to ensure they are working correctly and a custom dial label is fitted.
About the inDAT Full Feature Pulse to Tone Converter
This is another ‘Vintage Telephony’ product which we have produced because we were not happy with the quality of other products on the market.
Developed with Geoff Peters, the inDAT is an internal pulse to tone converter designed to function on VOIP lines (BT Digital Voice, Sky etc) and is near silent in operation.
Because we know a lot of our customers like vintage telephones to be kept as original as possible, our inDAT can operate in one of three modes.
1) Pulse to tone conversion only – dialling 0-9.
2) Pulse to tone conversion, 'Star' & 'Hash'.
3) Pulse to tone conversion, 'Star & Hash', 'Last Number Redial' & Stored Numbers.
Our inDAT is fitted internally. It is a single unit and requires no addition components.
Technical Notes
The inDAT has full bridge rectification to protect against reverse line polarity. It needs 24mA to operate which is matched or exceeded by all common VOIP services.
It has a balancing circuit to work with most types of microphone - carbon or electronic.
Once a dialled digit has been detected, the circuit will send out a corresponding tone burst to line using DTMF4 encoding. To solve the noise issue we have a muting device to attenuate the tone to an almost inaudible level.
Because of the current draw, the inDAT cannot be used in a circuit that has a Dial-A-Tone before it in the circuit. Rearranging the order of connection will resolve the issue.
Note: Because of variance across the new VIOP market, we need to know a little about the system you are connecting your telephone to. Essentially this is related to the ringing capacitor. We can supply your telephone as a two or three wire connection, or alternatively as a three wire with an adaptor. Please contact us and we will explain – it’s very straightforward!
