Uploaded June 2018 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Back in the days of "The Bell System" the telephone company would also charge for how many phones were hooked up to your line. The way the telephone company found how many phones one had hooked up was by measuring the impedance that was imposed by the bell/ringer on each connected phone. A common trick some people did was to disconnect the ringer in the extension phones in order to make them "invisible" to phone company equipment when the line was tested.
Someone mentioned to me that when he "acquired" an extra phone during the bell system days, he wired either a neon pilot lamp* or a fluorescent light starter in series with the ringer on that phone. The lower voltages used when the phone company tested the line was not enough to ionize the gas in the starter so his extension could not be "detected". However, when an incoming call was received, the higher voltage ringing signal would ionize and light the starter causing the bi-metal switch to heat up and close, completing the circuit to the bell and allowing the extension to ring.
I tried a FS-2 starter for an 18 inch or 2 foot fluorescent tube and although it briefly flashed when an incoming call was received, it did not pass enough current to ring the phone I used. A starter from a 5 watt compact fluorescent lamp did pass enough current to allow the phone to ring.
I want to (or would like someone to) try this on a mechanical ringer
*Note: A NE-2 neon indicator lamp did not pass enough current to allow the phone to ring
Back in the days of "The Bell System" the telephone company would also charge for how many phones were hooked up to your line. The way the telephone company found how many phones one had hooked up was by measuring the impedance that was imposed by the bell/ringer on each connected phone. A common trick some people did was to disconnect the ringer in the extension phones in order to make them "invisible" to phone company equipment when the line was tested.
Someone mentioned to me that when he "acquired" an extra phone during the bell system days, he wired either a neon pilot lamp* or a fluorescent light starter in series with the ringer on that phone. The lower voltages used when the phone company tested the line was not enough to ionize the gas in the starter so his extension could not be "detected". However, when an incoming call was received, the higher voltage ringing signal would ionize and light the starter causing the bi-metal switch to heat up and close, completing the circuit to the bell and allowing the extension to ring.
I tried a FS-2 starter for an 18 inch or 2 foot fluorescent tube and although it briefly flashed when an incoming call was received, it did not pass enough current to ring the phone I used. A starter from a 5 watt compact fluorescent lamp did pass enough current to allow the phone to ring.
I want to (or would like someone to) try this on a mechanical ringer
*Note: A NE-2 neon indicator lamp did not pass enough current to allow the phone to ring
