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X-Link Bluetooth gateway and rotary wall phone project
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gbkd80:
Hello- I am adding an old rotary wall phone in my kitchen (since I have a spot for it to go anyway) mostly for the retro look to match my theme- but once I realized they sell a Bluetooth gateway that would work on any phone, including the rotary, I said cool I’ll just use that. The idea is that I can bridge it from my cellphone and make it actually function since I don’t actually have an active land line.
The conundrum is this: I don’t have a power outlet near the phone jack, and this gateway itself is a bit unsightly and large, and requires power. I tried to see if I could feed it down the wall with the existing land line wires but I had sheetrocked over that area of my basement back when I bought the house many years ago. So my idea of having the BT in the basement out of sight won’t work without extra work I don’t want to commit to. Then I thought about possibly taking the gateway apart and somehow mounting it inside the rotary phone; although I’d still need power. Maybe some sort of DC battery clip that I can mount on the side?
Anyone ever play around with this stuff? I know it’s not really a ‘build’ but it’s a project I wanted to do :-)
zitt:
So... it's P.O.T.S rotary phone... where the power is typically derived from the red and green wires; right?
To power the rotary phone; don't you just plug into the RJ connector?
If so; is there a spec on the BT device where you can't have a length of twisted pair to the Rotary phone?
IE gateway in the "basement" and a short run of twisted pair to the rotary phone.
What am I missing? Ah - you said you didn't want to run it to the basement.
Still tho; a remote power plug with twisted pair running to the phone seems the easiest to do.
sokoloff:
As @zitt said, if you have two wires (they don't even have to be twisted; the very old ones weren't) from the BT to the phone, the phone will work. That opens up a lot of possibilities for where to hide the XLink. (You want it to be close by to where you leave/charge your phones, so the bluetooth works well.)
Small sheetrock repairs are quite easy. I wouldn't hesitate to drill into the wall as needed to locate the XLink in a cabinet, over the microwave, or what have you. (We use an Xlink at home; it's nice. I didn't know until just now that it supports rotary dialing.)
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