Old Wall-mounted telephones for Intercom

topic posted Sun, June 24, 2007 - 11:37 PM by  Lissa
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We need an intercom between the Customs Desk in the Terminal Building and the Box Office. This is for the BRC Airport, of course. I can easily purchase a modern intercom, and will probably buy one as a back-up unit. But it would be so cool to have an intercom made out of wall-mounted telephones, like the white courtesy telephones in mundane world airports.

I've found some for sale, but at too high a price for rotary dial. May have to settle for more modern push-button style. It is IDEAL to have two identical phones (identical hardware, color doesn't matter). Does anyone have an old phone or preferrably a pair? We could perhaps use a wall-mount in the Terminal and desk phone in the office.

Once we have a couple of phones, we'll need someone with electronic skills to make it work. Lots of circuit diagrams for telephone intercoms on the web. Any volunteers want to tackle this job? Doesn't matter where you live, we can ship equipment. It DOES need to be completed and installed during setup. I'll be departing San Jose on August 17th and would like to take it with me.

p.s. I first submitted this as a "request" or listing, but I can't access the listing, and have heard the same from others. This is message repeat as a posting.
posted by:
Lissa
SF Bay Area
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  • B.
    B.
    offline 36

    Re: Old Wall-mounted telephones for Intercom

    Wed, June 27, 2007 - 10:32 AM
    You can find the Western Electric 554's on eBay fairly cheapish usually. The only prob with them is they need the outside battery supply for voice (3-9 VDC), and a way to do the ringer, which is 90 VAC (20 hz). The antique phones did this with the little ringer crank mag on each phone, and nowdays they do all that at the switching offices...

    In our camp we had an intercom set up using a pair of WW2 military surplus field phones we got at Twin CIty Surplus in Reno - which had the magneto ringer and ran off 2 "D" cells each (6 volts total). They weren't cheap (tho about 1/2 of the dial wall phones through the old phone vendors) but they were playa dust proof.
  • Re: Old Wall-mounted telephones for Intercom

    Thu, June 28, 2007 - 10:28 AM
    Sportsman's Guide has two antique looking phones: a Crosly Classic Desk phone for $49.97 and a Classic l950's Wall Mounted Pay Phone for $79.97. Both have, of course been modified with buttons instead of a dial but they look very authentic.

    Just a thought.

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