Hard to tell in that bottom photo with all the wires covering the terminals. 

Is the curly cord at the back the one that goes to line? Follow the red/white out of that cord and see where they go. Generally, red/white is your phone line pair (the green and blue is for the ringing circuit) But you will need to add a resistor on one of the legs (in series) to make it ring - best place to get the resistor is snip it off an old BT jackpoint, it's the big yellow round thing.

Then your next issue is the dialing. Should be OK on a "normal" analogue line (one from the NEAX). Otherwise I guess you could try setting up an ATA with pulse dialing, but I don't think that would be very successful at all.

Is pulse dialing still supported by Spark or (m)any ATAs?

The Curly wire is the receiver handle.

Here is a better shot of the wires

There is plenty of sites that show you single line phones as they only have 3/4 wires going in

Detruire:

 

Is pulse dialing still supported by Spark or (m)any ATAs?

 

It would come down to the Hardware in the exchange I guess, if it's not the latest kit it might still work.

Ahh understood. Missed that photo with the line selectors... that makes it tricky. I would start with trying the "known pairs" - red/white green/white white/blue

Take a live phone line, strip back the wires and just touch across a bunch of pairs and see what happens!

Edit: And yea, pulse dialling should be fine on any line that is "NEAX powered"

You can't use pulse dialling on any ATA and you won't be able to either on Spark voice circuits that are now on VoIP.

To use it with an ATA you need one of these https://www.dialgizmo.com/

That adapter isn't the reverse dial unit though, somebody built one that supports reverse pulse dialling that NZ uses.

sbiddle:

You can't use pulse dialling on any ATA and you won't be able to either on Spark voice circuits that are now on VoIP.

To use it with an ATA you need one of these https://www.dialgizmo.com/

That adapter isn't the reverse dial unit though, somebody built one that supports reverse pulse dialling that NZ uses.

 

 

mckenndk:

Here is a better shot of the wires

There is plenty of sites that show you single line phones as they only have 3/4 wires going in

mckenndk: What do you mean by reverse dial unit?

andrewNZ:

mckenndk: What do you mean by reverse dial unit?

NZ pulse dialling is reversed compared to many larger countries, here dialling 1 is 9 pulses, dialling 9 is 1 pulse.
So with the linked unit to actually dial 021, you'd need to dial something like 078.

When I were a kid we could make free calls from phone boxes by tapping out 10-n pulses for each number with the hang-up bar.

kryptonjohn:

 

andrewNZ:

mckenndk: What do you mean by reverse dial unit?

NZ pulse dialling is reversed compared to many larger countries, here dialling 1 is 9 pulses, dialling 9 is 1 pulse.
So with the linked unit to actually dial 021, you'd need to dial something like 078.

 

When I were a kid we could make free calls from phone boxes by tapping out 10-n pulses for each number with the hang-up bar.

 

 

 

We did the same for a while, then the Post Office (pre telecom) must have wised up to this scam that must have been costing them several dollars or even more each year in total lost revenue, and made some changes to all the phone box phones.  Can remember some complication - like you could make a call, but the person you called couldn't hear you.

froob:  to make the bells ring.

Yeah - but then you'd feel compelled to answer it, get your leaking computer files sorted, make large donations to unknown charities, invest in Estonian hedge funds, and tell some old people that they've dialled the wrong number.

Bung: In the late 70's the phonebox mechanisms were modified so the hook switch couldn't pulse fast enough to dial.

yeah, but they needed to go an do it to every phone, 

We had one at college in the early 80s that you could still 'tap" (I suspect it was sitting on a regular line and the school was just pocketing the takings and it wasn't on any of the Post Office lists)