I purchased an old style candlestick phone with a 4-prong adapter in place. I removed that adapter (found red, green and yellow wires) and connected the red and green wires to the modern prong (clipped off the yellow). The phone can dial out and I can answer it okay, however, it will not ring. Other than it not ringing, it works great. How do I get it to ring? I have searched the internet and have read that the yellow was used as a ground in the older days.
Thank you.
If it's an *old* candlestick phone (as opposed to an "old style" ) the odds are increased that it may actually be broken, aka nothing you can do to make it ring. Did you get any "history" when you bought it?
As far as the yellow goes, anything beyond red/green being the primary pair is not set in stone. Usually the yellow/black are the 2nd pair for a 2nd line, but one/both have been used down through the years to deliver extra voltages to Princess phones to power the lights, etc. That yellow wire inside of your phone could be doing just about anything, or nothing. You almost need to open it up and see what it's attached to inside.
Hi,
Switch the red and green and if that doesn't work switch them back and then switch the yellow and black. If that doesn't work try turning the ringer on. It sounds to me like it is the volume adjuster or a bad ringer on the phone and not your wiring to be honest.
candice
Normally on a 'private' (individual non party line, in North America) the ground has nothing to do with the ringer and 'ground' is not used inside the house. Grounded ringer connection is/was used on certain two party and other party lines however. A ground connection is also used where the telephone line enters the building at a 'protector' which helps prevent lightning and other foreign voltages. I agree with other posters; USUALLy the red and green wires are sufficient for dialling out and answering the phone and the 'ringer' is either inside modern phones or is a separate 'ringer box'. It is very likely that a genuine (original) candlestick phone may not even have a ringer inside it; or if it is a modern copy of the old fashioned design, it may include some kind of electronic 'beeper' and you will need circuit information how to connect or activate it. Terry.
Just a thought from a Brit in the US!
In the UK phones always have three wires. Failure to connect wire #3 leads to everything working except the ringing out of the bell.
Let me explain it as I understand it!
British Telecom (and all of the other providers) provide a two (A&B) wire service terminating at a termination point called a 'master socket'. In the 'master socket' there is a bell capacitor tee'd off from one of the inbound wires (A I believe). From this point on in the internal wiring three wires are connected to each phone (A, B and bell).
Connecting A&B means everything works except that the bell won't ring out! This sounds like your problem.
Modern US phones appear to have this circuitary in them. When I brought my British phone to the US when I moved here, it worked except the bell ring! I managed to buy an adaptor in the UK that contained the necessary circuitry to ring the bell and convert the BT socket to a standard RJ11.
This *may* be your problem! Try a web search to find out more about it?
Cheers
Den
Here is a pretty good reference for wiring the telly ,
I've seen old phones that used the yellow as one side of the ringer (so you could connect the phone without a ringer if you wanted to, or have an external ringer on/off switch). Try connecting the yellow to the green side, and if the ringer still doesn't work then try the red side.
HTH.
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