Tag Archives: GSM rotary dial


Rotary dial phone gets GSM upgrade

I found this nice Instructable from  on upgrading an old-school rotary dial telephone to a GSM phone using Arduino and a SIM900 GSM shield, while preserving the classical ringing sound, sluggish rotating dialer, and a heavy handset.

Rotary dial phone gets GSM upgrade

Rotary dial phone gets GSM upgrade

These kind of telephone cannot be used now days due to incompatibility between pulse and tone dialing. Before trash it i ask to myself: how can i transform it? My aim was to replay old feelings: classical ringing sound, rotating dialer and a heavy comfortable handset. Then i decided to relive that and so, in this instructables, i’ll show how to transform a rotary dialer telephone to GSM telephone using Arduino and a SIM900 GSM shield.

From late 60’s till 1985, the only Italian telephone company (SIP) furnished to each contract subscriber a basic rotary dialer telephone Siemens AUSO brand named “bigrigio”, that translated means “double-grey”. Expensive calls and slow number dialing didn’t help to people communications like today.