Communication...

[HandyMan]

Ok, the theatre where I spend just about as much time as I can USED to have a phone system, linking the booth, catwalk, and stage left/ right together..but when the theatre was renivated, all the wiring for the recivers were cut. now, if I need to get in touch with who ever I got working in the booth, I either have to physically go there, or try and get ahold of them on a walkie. I was wondering what you guys can suggest for a phone/ comm system that could get rid of this annoying problem (on a school districts dime), oh, and if anyone knows how to re-connect anything, that might also be feasible...
thanks for any help that you guys can give...

[soundlight]

What system did you have originally? If it's a clear-com/telex/production intercom type deal, it should just be 3-pin XLR wiring and some power hook-ups.

[avkid]

If it was just cut, that's really easy to fix.

[HandyMan]

hey soundlight, (enjoyed that bible) i dont remember at the moment what system it was, but i do know that it was extreamly old...umm i think it had telephone wires runnin from base to base....they kinda resembel old-school roteriydial (sp) phones...im not totally sure...ill check tomarow durin rehersal..

[Van]

Hmm sounds like a one-of a kind jobber. Their are a couple of people here familiar with phone wiring. I'd weigh in but I'd have to turn that part of my brain on and yank everything out of deeeeeeep storage I used to be the guy that maintained our similar system in Highschool, but that was way too long ago. It sounds like it's basically and old phone system wired up like a feild phone system..

[Squeegee]

If you're thinking high-budget there are wireless telex/clearcoms that you can get.

Lower than that but a bit more ghetto is that you can get wired telex/clearcom and just have a central hub, usually with 3 or 4 output/input XLR ports and you can run 50'+XLR chord through your audience our house or whatever to your backstage. It's annoying and ill-advised due to some asshole audience members maybe messing with it (that's what gafftape is for) but that's an option.

Even lower budget than that are just normal walkie talkies with a headset that has a PTT (push to talk) button on it so that it works like a telex/clear com system but is less expensive (and not to mention less reliable) but it works.

[Footer]

http://www.toaelectronics.com/int0004.asp

Its a pretty good system, Have had them in a few venues I have worked in.

[Sylak]

I find something that usually woks very well in this situation is complain to the district and find out who gave the orders to cut your system. Although, in theory, you could rig the system back up yourself and use phones that need an AC adapter, you'd just need to read up on your phone wiring in Wiki and Google

[SHARYNF]

Here is a suggestion, Panasonic makes or made a small business pbx system that used standard rj11 (phone jacks) and would support their 22 button phones and also standard analog phones.

Chances are that the wiring all went to a central location, and you could just wire in one of these pbx units, and then add in the phones, they show up on ebay or google the Phones were 43223 if I remeber and one of the pbx models was a kx ta624, you might ask around a bit

With the 43223 phones you can select an extension have speaker phone, etc and with the pbx you can page all etc etc. These were common in small businesses, where you had a few co lines etc. For your use you would not need to have the co lines connected but just use the station to station features.

Clear com has a lot of advantages but IMO works best in an environment where you need flexibility of where to put the station, and where you really want com from central point to many stations and also where the users are more likely to wear head sets, the pbx approach works best with more station to station com, were it is more occasional.

Wiring up the connections is pretty easy, you can just wire up rj11 jack plates and get your self a rj11 crimper and some connectors,

Sharyn

[Edrick]

If you're going with a wireless telex system you're looking at some insane price, We looked into a dual channel system w/ 4 packs (no headsets since we had them), 2 Around 2 grand for each pack, and 6 grand for the reciever / central hub.