New gizmo hitting the market
A Rotary Dial mobile phone .
No touch screen. No time wasting net surfing destructions ...
It's a Pretty cool looking device.

See link ..

Pete

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/06/youll-soon-be-able-to-buy-that-distraction-free-rotary-dial-mobile-phone/amp/

I wonder if that is small enough to install in my workboot so I'd have a shoe-phone at work...

For younger readers who may not get the reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHrnLOb1hTA

Probably be a bit of a Hit that phone with the Y generation. I have sold them lots of Ericofones and 60s 70s Dial phones over the years. I still have a pink Ericofone and 2 , 60s red Dial phones and one black 60s phone.
Plus I have a nice old bakelite wall phone from an old pub in SA.

They have a bit of deal going on here in Albury where you can get a land line and the internet on cheap package...copper lines here still ! unless you give it up and go with NBN which I'm not doing !

Pete

It's a bit of a neat idea

I myself have a Ericsson Cobra and a couple telecom 802's
When I got my main 802 it was missing the circular area code paper from the middle of the dial
But I was lucky enough when I found dad still had a container full of new ones from his telecom days!

Lance have you ever thought of building your own telephone exchange?

Lance, Homicide phones we call them !
Mine is a pink type colour.
Your too young to remember the show Homicide. It stopped board casting before I was born too, But I know the show . In the show they all use those phones.
Have a look on YouTube and type in Homicide TV show Australia... please don't just type Homicide.. gruesome stuff will pop up.

Pete

Ian
Yes I've always wanted to make a Mini exchange but I don't know where to start.
Dad sometimes talks about the old cross bar (crowbar) exchanges that he used to see.

Pete
Mines a light grey colour.
I have heard of the homicide show but I've never seen anything of it.

I only found out about it after watching a recording of the last minutes of channel 7 Melbourne on ATV where they commemorated a whole bunch of shows.

Lance

Start with making a single phone to phone set up?
That gives you the idea of having the basic power supplies, tone and dialing generators.
Must be heaps on the web about it.
I remember RH describing "intercom" projects way back in the past.

In this site in special projects I outlined a test rig I made to do modem to modem testing via phone line.
That was all manual control with supplies rigged up from transformers and 555's for pulses.

A small manual exchange would be a good project.
No not me!

Fred.

Looks like a updated, 4G ready version is available now for pre-order:
https://skysedge.com/unsmartphones/RUSP/index.html

But it sure isn't the cheap backup phone you can keep in the car at US$390. But for a ground up project it's quite cool.