Payphones

ieure

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Donor 2014-2015
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Does anyone have a good resource for payphones? I picked one up recently, but can't find a manual or much info on it. The only identifying marks are on the PCB inside it, which says it's an Ernest Group, Model EG, Series LPI. It's a similar style to the Western Electric/Bell "Fortress," but not identical. Date codes on the ICs mean it came off the line in the 1998-9 timeframe. No display, but there's a connector on the board for one.

There's a three-position .156" header labeled "TELCO," so I assume this isn't a COCOT style phone, and needs external control for the coin stuff. I think I can probably figure that out, since it's likely to be the same as similar phones, but I'd love to find a manual so I can figure out how to program it.
 
I've been wanting to get one someday to see how I can mod the electronics.
Back when I was a kid and payphones were common me and some friends somehow got our hands on a test # that when you dialed it and hung up the phone would start ringing until someone picked it up, we would go to the local mall and leave the whole bank of 8 phones ringing :giggle:
It's both a pity and a good thing I didn't have the kind of technical knowledge back then I have now, I would have been a terror.
 
Does anyone have a good resource for payphones? I picked one up recently, but can't find a manual or much info on it. The only identifying marks are on the PCB inside it, which says it's an Ernest Group, Model EG, Series LPI. It's a similar style to the Western Electric/Bell "Fortress," but not identical. Date codes on the ICs mean it came off the line in the 1998-9 timeframe. No display, but there's a connector on the board for one.

There's a three-position .156" header labeled "TELCO," so I assume this isn't a COCOT style phone, and needs external control for the coin stuff. I think I can probably figure that out, since it's likely to be the same as similar phones, but I'd love to find a manual so I can figure out how to program it.

Love ours. Replaced (but saved) guts with a glorified home telephone board in it, wired to the handset, ringer, and RJ11 out.

Basics

Found ours in pristine condition locally, but https://www.payphone.com looks to have some nice ones. The board I'm using came from them, https://www.payphone.com/Armored-Hotline-Circuit-Board.html.

More (hardly) advanced stuff

The RJ11 goes to a SIP ATA, connected RJ45 to a LAN->WLAN adapter, connects to our home WiFi, and acts as an endpoint off our Asterisk server. Asterisk server has a SIP trunk w/Twilio, and a PSTN DID.

Old GTE caller-id unit sits between phone and ATA, works perfectly, and actually gets time from the Asterisk server which blew me away.

If anyone is interested in a setup like that perhaps I'll start a howto thread.

Screen Shot 2022-05-10 at 10.37.35 AM.pngScreen Shot 2022-05-10 at 10.38.23 AM.pngScreen Shot 2022-05-10 at 10.38.43 AM.png
 
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This is amazing.

So cool to see old school tech meets new school tech to create an awesome set up!
Love ours. Replaced (but saved) guts with a glorified home telephone board in it, wired to the handset, ringer, and RJ11 out.

Basics

Found ours in pristine condition locally, but https://www.payphone.com looks to have some nice ones. The board I'm using came from them, https://www.payphone.com/Armored-Hotline-Circuit-Board.html.

More (hardly) advanced stuff

The RJ11 goes to a SIP ATA, connected RJ45 to a LAN->WLAN adapter, connects to our home WiFi, and acts as an endpoint off our Asterisk server. Asterisk server has a SIP trunk w/Twilio, and a PSTN DID.

Old GTE caller-id unit sits between phone and ATA, works perfectly, and actually gets time from the Asterisk server which blew me away.

If anyone is interested in a setup like that perhaps I'll start a howto thread.

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I got a real one from the early 1980's on ebay years ago for $100. Functional, weighs like 80 lbs or 80 million pounds. I hooked a magic jack up to it and it's been working fine.
 
I use magicjack for mine too. Haha! Would be nice to make it work in coin operated fashion, but working as a standard phone is good enough. People don't even really use it anyway. It's just cool to be able to say that it does actually work.
 
I use magicjack for mine too. Haha! Would be nice to make it work in coin operated fashion, but working as a standard phone is good enough. People don't even really use it anyway. It's just cool to be able to say that it does actually work.

Depending on the type that you have you can make it work with a coin. I tested mine using coin and it worked. When time was out, it made a beep and adding another quarter added time. I bypassed it to make it work, just like everyone else, with a magic jack, haha.
 
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