Configure Your Adapter

Bought your own ATA? Four steps and your vintage phone is alive. These shots are a Grandstream HT802 — other Grandstream models look almost identical.

1

Get your line's settings

In your White Pages, each of your Local Lines shows a SIP Info box with three things you'll copy into the adapter:

  • Server — the IP address of your Exchange
  • User ID — this line's generated username
  • Password — this line's generated password

Screenshot it, or keep the tab open — you'll paste these next.

POTSBox White Pages showing a line's Server IP, User ID, and Password
2

Enter them into your adapter

Open your adapter's config page in a browser, then go to Port Settings → FXS PORT → General Settings. Under Account Registration, fill in the three things from Step 1:

  • Primary SIP Server ← your Server IP
  • SIP User ID, SIP Authenticate ID, and Name ← your User ID
  • SIP Authentication Password ← your Password

Tick Account Active, then Save and Apply. Back in your White Pages the line flips from Unregistered to Registered — you're on the network.

Two things you'll need:
  • The adapter's address. On a Touch-Tone phone, pick up and dial * * * — a voice reads you the IP. Type it into your browser. (On a pulse-only rotary phone this won't work; find the adapter in your router's device list instead.)
  • The login. Username is admin; the password is printed on the sticker on the bottom of your adapter.
Grandstream adapter Account Registration page with Server, User ID, and Password fields
3

Rotary phone? Turn on pulse dialing

A rotary dial doesn't send tones — it sends clicks. Under Analog Signal Line Configuration, tick Enable Pulse Dialing so those clicks register as digits. Now your 1940s dial works exactly as it did.

Touch-Tone (push-button) phones need nothing here — skip to the end.

Grandstream Analog Signal Line Configuration with Enable Pulse Dialing checked
4

No dial at all? Use Auto-Dial

Got a dial-less candlestick — nothing to dial? This is the magic trick. Under Call Settings, set Off-hook Auto Dial to 0. Now the moment you lift the receiver, it calls the Operator — she answers and connects you, no dialing required.

It's exactly how a phone worked in 1910: pick up, and the operator is there. The newest plumbing, restoring the oldest romance.

Grandstream Call Settings with Off-hook Auto Dial set to 0

Stuck? Ask on r/potsbox or write to jtayler@me.com.