We have a old fashioned dial phone which was given as a present but now although we can take incoming calls we seem unable to dial a call and wondered if anyone had any ideas.Thank's

Long shot, but you haven't been cut off by your service provider have you? I don't know if they still do, but they used to just cut off outgoing calls, you could still receive them.

If it's a pulse dialling device, which it sounds like it is, then your service provider may have disabled this option. The vast majority of people use tone dialling devices nowadays.

Do you have a tone dialling device you can try?

If your phone exchange is modern (i.e. re-fitted within the last 40 years or so) then it's never going to work with an old rotary pulse-dial electromechanical thingummybob so you will need to use a tone-dial phone to call out, or use something to make those tones so the exchange can hear what number to connect.

You may well be able to get a penny whistle and a guidebook on what notes to play to dial your favourite £9.99-a-minute number - or there's probably a tone-dial plug-in keypad thing somewhere that would do the trick (on the basis that I would be surprised if there wasn't such a thing).

Is your phone line from someone like TalkTalk or Sky or Virgin?

They may not allow for pulse dialing (which is what the dial on your phone does - it picks up and hangs up the phone really fast to send a number, unlike modern phones that send tones).

You could try talking to your phone provider and ask if they can turn "pulse dialing" on, or if it's actually a vintage GPO phone (not a reproduction) you could fit something like this - http://www.rotatone.co.uk/ - which would still let you dial as normal but it converts the pulses to tones.


This is not strictly true. All of BT's exchanges support pulse dialing, as do lines provided on BT equipment. It is the other companies' equipment that may not - or more likely, it can support pulse dialing, but they don't have it turned on (and may either turn it on upon request, or refuse)

I didn't know that! I must have over-interpreted what I was being told about the modernisations, or perhaps even got the *intended* message because it was always about the pulse-dial being a thing of the past (etc). I had also been fairly convinced that pulse-dial would never work on a cable provider phone line based on assumptions stemming from the 'digital squawk' you hear when the other end hangs up.

There's also the possibility of using a smartphone app to generate the tones though this isn't as mad as it sounds, depending on what sort of billing deal one is on.

Pulse dialling still works on many exchanges.

You could try something to see if it works. Use a short, but valid, free number like 155 (international operator). Don't use 111 or 112 as they are emergency services.

When a pulse telephone dials, it actually opens and closes a circuit at, roughly, 0.1 second intervals. Dial one, and it will open and close the circuit once. Dial two and it will do it twice. That's the clicking you can hear.

The same circuit is also opened and closed by the two black sticky-out bits that you put the receiver down on. So, to dial one, you can quickly press those down and release them instantly. Like tapping them.

So, to dial 155, you tap it down once, wait a second, tap it five times quickly (like 0.1 sec apart but it isn't too critical), wait another second and then tap it another five times. If it then starts ringing the International Operator, put the phone down quickly and feel confident that you can still use pulse dialling (and that it is a phone problem, rather than an exchange problem)


(If anyone else fancies trying that, you can all do it on the switch you put your receiver down onto. Remember to tap ten times for '0'. It can be a fun party trick)

Remember that the modernisation began when a lot of people still had GPO phones (and it was really beginning while it still *was* the GPO). There was a need to have pulse dialing still work, and while the number of GPO phone users has dropped, support for it hasn't gone away.

You can try it for yourself if you have a corded (not cordless) phone, if you can press the hook switch very quickly and cause the dialtone to go away, pulse dialing would work. Even on digital exchanges (which in BT's case are all of them since about 20 years ago). Some modern cordless phones can also be set to use pulse dialing.

Whether it would work with a cable company line would depend on the exact equipment in use. I understand Virgin's predecessors all bought either the exact same exchange equipment BT used, or models that had never seen use in the UK (but would still likely do pulse dialing).

Where you're more likely to get trouble are on VoIP services provided by a box inside your home. These typically won't do pulse dialing.

Of course on any phone there's nothing stopping you using an app or an actual tone dialer (they used to exist) held up to the handset. There are other solutions like the "rotatone" as I said, which are installed inside the phone and do it all for you

Though you might need the non-emergency NHS number because you now have chronic RSI in your finger and blisters on it after that international number you needed to call.


Hence my use of 'assumption', I had always thought somehow a 'cable phone' (because of aforementioned squawk) worked very differently, and I'm sure I've seen stuff in telephone rulebooks (unless I'm thinking modems) about BT versus cable, but thinking about it this might be due to the 'not guaranteed to work' aspect, or possibly the green circle vs red triangle thing and I know it makes me a weirdo to even acknowledge the existence of instruction booklets

Sometimes when I ring I get through as have just rang my daughters number then a minute later tried again and got this message the number dialled is not recognised after dialing the first three digits I get the dialling tone again.Just tried my daughters number again it was fine.

We have two cordless phones we use and they are ok and have not been cut off

We use talktalk

If pulse dialing is set to on will we still be able to use our cordless phones which are quite new

The following is the phone we have found this on google

http://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/au...f-a43100a826aa

If it's a true vintage phone, some of them had a little switch on the bottom, that you could change from pulse to tone.

I would say that something within the dial-mechanism is dodgy. Depending on how confident you are with a screwdriver, you could try opening it up and squirting some electrical contact cleaner (available from Halfords) into the contacts.

Worst that can happen is that you end up with an interesting ornament, which seems to be where you're heading anyway.

It looks like it already is on since you can make (some) calls using the dial. It seems that it may not be dialing properly though.

But yes, if pulse dialing needed to be switched on, you can use a normal phone.

That's a pretty unusual phone, I'm afraid. It's not one of the standard GPO phones which used to be used, like the 746 model.

In spite of this, I believe there's a fair chance that installing one of those pulse to tone converters may-well do the trick. If you contact the chap who's making and selling these items he might be able to offer you some further advice.

It's possible that the timing tolerance of the pulses is on the limit of what the exchange will recognise. Does the accuracy improve if you help the dial round with your fingers?

On the subject of dialling by tapping the phone cradle - I occasionally used that to thwart mechanical dial locks!

My grandparents used a pulse dial rotary phone up until about 10-15 years ago. It still worked fine until the day they got rid of it (they only upgraded as they wanted a cordless phone) so this can't be completely true.

Pulse dialling also requires pin 3 to be connected. Tone dialling doesn't and most households now don't have pin 3 connected any more.

That's not true. Pulse dialling involves interruption of current flowing through the local loop - i.e the two wires entering the property. Pin 3 is derived internally, and its purpose was to provide ringing current for old-style phones. It's not needed for modern phones. So without it, you might not hear your rotary dial phone ring, but you'd still be able to make calls!

I am going into town at the weekend and will call into a shop which sells all sorts of things old including old phones and will ask them and will take a photo of the phone with me and ask their advice.

Haven't we already established that your exchange recognises pulse dialling, but that your dial mechanism is a bit dodgy? It seems to me that you have two choices: try to get the existing dial mechanism working reliably (it might be the contacts, or it it might be the speed of return), or replace it with one that is known to be good.

We have the same problem as my wife was given the phone as a present and when we got it we were able to ring out but now we can only take calls on it.I have plugged one of our other phones in and that is fine.Any help appreciated.