# The Ghost Phone, Back from the Dead!



## Ghost Ninja (Aug 25, 2013)

So I've been working on this project since last year. I know that there are different ways of doing this… so here is mine. My idea was started by the foreign nature the old type of corded phones are to today's kids. Many of today's kids only know cell phones or maybe cordless phones at home. Stiltbeast kicked me into high gear when he suggested an old phone may be spooky today on one of his videos (Thanks Alan).


So I began by insisting that the phones real bells or ringer work. I know that I could easily hook up an MP3 sound file or even some other kind of ringer under the phone. But no, not for me. So this last weekend I finally wrapped it up. The problem is that you can't energize the phone's ringer without getting into dangerously high voltage (despite the thin wires) or expensive customized power sources used in live theater. I found a way to do it and added in some clever info from KipKay's ghost phone video too (Thanks Kip!) 


So … I give you my first tut and my take on the Ghost Phone.


Parts Needed:
Old style phone with cord and handset,Ebay $5.00
Simple door buzzer, Home Depot $8.00
Doorbell transformer, $12 (I got anopen box discount for $10) 
Round Single Gang Junction Box andCover, Home Depot about $4
Christmas Tree Light Floor Button, BigLots out of season clearance $3 (Thanks again to Stiltbeast)
Small MP3, Ebay $4
Over the Ear Headphones, Big Lots $5
Various wire clamps, rubber grommets,screws, scrap wood, zip ties, thin stiff wire and two wire nuts.
Total about $40 +/-


Step One: Gut the phone innards but keep the two bells and hammer assembly intact. Also be sure to keep the wires coming out of the little gizmo where the buttons go down to hang up the phone. You'll see where the raising and lowering of the handset changes the connecting wire contacts.










Step Two: Remove the buzzer cover and save for some kind of robot costume or cool steam punk utility belt. Carefully cut the metal body of the buzzer so that it fits right alongside the hammer. Trim a small piece of wood to support the buzzer body so that it is at about the same level as the bell hammer. You'll need to drill a small hole at the end of the metal buzzer bar that move back and forth making the buzz. Attach a small section of stiff wire from the hole that you drilled to the end of the hammer. Some tweaking will be needed but more on that later.









Step Three: Connect the incoming phone line cord (not the curly one) to the buzzer. I cut off two of the four wires, any two and hooked one of them up to the body and the other to the set screw as indicated by the directions that came with it. This is easy there are only two screws anyways. The cord has a metal clip to secure it to the base of the phone, which I clamped down tightly. I also zip-tied the cord to the bell base just to be sure. You can see the green and red wires in the pic above.


Step Four: Open the handset receiver and remove the speaker. Like Kipkay said, it's kind of cool so save it for something else down the line. Replace the speaker with a speaker from the headset. Mine was too big to fit until I dismantled it and it fit like a glove. I cut off the screw connector ends from the handset and soldered them (white wires) directly to the speaker. Note which color wires you soldered to the speaker and cut the other two off from the other end of the coiley cord.











Step Five: On the phone end, connect the metal clip to phone, clamp and zip tie like the other cord. Connect the two white wires from the coiley cord to the brown and white colored wire coming out from the “hanger-upper-thingy-majig”.










Step Six: Cut the wire off of the over the ear headset so that you have the jack and a short length of wire. Splice and separate the four wires. I combined the two pairs into two wires. You may have to scrape or sand the insulation off of the two of the wires for a better contact. Now connect these two wires to the green and yellow wires coming out of that little do-dad that I mentioned in step six.


Step Seven: Now for the power source. Drill about a ¼ inch holes on opposite sides of the round junction box. Install the rubber grommets to protect your cords from fraying. Feed the phone line into the side with the 16 volt hook ups. And feed your power extension cord line into the other hole. This is where I used the Christmas tree floor button light to power it. I cut off the multiple plug end off leaving about 4 inching of cord, I should have left 6 inches. Connect the power cord to the transformer power-in lines with wire nuts and tape them. I attached the green ground wire to the junction box to keep it out of the way. This is not a true ground, and I accept no responsibility if give yourself a perm or worse. Put the cover on the junction box, it's a tight fit but I got it on. (I first hooked up the multi-voltage transformer for 8 volts directly and it worked well. But after hooking it up through the longer phone line it was too weak. I then switched the wiring for 16 volts and that works great. Just follow the instructions on it, I did it by connecting the two outside terminals)










Set it up and have fun! Hook up your MP3 with you file of choice, I loved the Vincent Price Thriller Rap. You the know the one without much music and the extra rap section. I put it on loop and tucked it under the dialer. When you lift the handset the track is heard through the receiver. When you hang up the phone it cuts the connection and nothing is heard! When you depress the floor button the phone rings, until you step on it again to turn it off. With a little practice, you will get the right rhythm of an old phone ring. 


Note: You will most likely do a lot of tweaking to the buzzer to get the contacts to meet just right. Chances are, you bent the heck out of it during your cutting and mounting. I also had to adjust the two bells so that they were as close together as possible. And I had to bend the wire holding the hammer so that the hammer could contact both bells when operating. Lastly, I took the top cover off of the floor button and painted it black. Before reinstalling it, I cut off one of the button lights and left the light that is always on intact. I also dismantled the button itself and cut off the little teeth radiating out so that it cannot stay on. Thereby converting it into a momentary switch! (That's another tut I'll write later.)






















I mounted the junction box containing the transformer and the floor button to a scrap piece of plywood after painting it black. So now I have a subdued glowing red button that powers the original ringer in the phone and the sound track is controlled by lifting up the handset. This is a prop that needs an operator to work. I thought about hooking it up to a floor mat, but some bonehead would just sit on it and mess it up. So there you go,I hope that my pictures help. I'll try and post a video later, right now the file is too large to send from my phone.


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## J-Man (Feb 1, 2011)

Awesome job! I love it! It would be pretty easy to convert this into a fully automatic prop with a microcontroller and a step mat or PIR. You could also program the microcontroller to activate the proper ring sequence. Very cool!


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## JustaBunchOfHocusPocus (Sep 17, 2007)

Wow that's awesome! That's a fantastic prop, I plan on bookmarking it in case I'd like to make this prop in the future! 

And the way you did it step by step really helps me cause I'm a beginner to all of this.


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## Ghost Ninja (Aug 25, 2013)

Okay, I was finally able to get the video onto my computer. Here is a good demo of the ringer but you can't hear the receiver very well on the video. Just the same I plan on adding an in-line volume do-hicky on the MP3 player.


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## SavageEye (Aug 30, 2010)

Love this! Thanks for the tutorial!


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## PirateDex (Jun 25, 2014)

Thank you for that. Amazing work. The party line at Disney World in the candy store was always on my list to do.


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## Ghost Ninja (Aug 25, 2013)

Thank you all for the kind words. I have been so inspired by so many from the haunt community and especially this forum, that I am excited to contribute back.


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## Gym Whourlfeld (Jan 22, 2003)

I used an old phone to activate my kitchen faucet at the other side of the room, turning the water "ON" along with some chicken-sounds. (This all fits to a routine of mine here.)
Another old phone would activate one of the Radio Shack "Talking Chips" they used to sell as someone would bravely pick-up the receiver on this phone in an up-right coffin in the wine cellar.
This hip had what sort of sounded like a sales call advertising mess-proof pants, or something like that? This was a Long Time Ago.
I wish Radio Shack still made their first edition of these chips which were easy to hook up the various wires to them, unlike the ones that came later, ("GRR!")


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