Clear-Com explanation

Anonymous067

Active Member
Okay. Bad bad bad question but I'm dieing to know.
Our theater has a medium sized clear com headset system. Can somebody explain it to me...heres what we have.

Scattered around our theater we have ports that say "intercom". We plug six pin xlrs into these and go to "Intercom A" on wired boxes. Headsets obviously attach to headset plug.

we have 6-8 wireless headsets with boxes that to my knowledge have one channel on them.

In our main rack, we have two--one space units-- that say channel a and b or something to that nature on them. Haven't had a chance to examine the back, but now that we have the racks out for the show, maybe I'll look.

We also have a single ru unit (different from the other one)...in our processor rack, and it has a headset output on it, with a talk button. The other side of it has a built in mic and speaker which we don't use.

Our dressing room has like a three gang box with a clearcom unit over it with a speaker and talk button on it, as well as a headset plug.

How is all this wired. Also...our patch panel has jacks on it that say "clear com" or "dressing room clear com". where might these be wired to??
 
It would take drawings or some time tracing wiring and getting model numbers to know exactly what you have, but here's a guess...

It sounds like you have a two channel, party line system. The six pin wall jacks have both channels on them, and you are using two channel beltpacks all set to Ch A.

The two units in the main rack may be the power supplies, one per channel. The unit in the processor rack is probably the main station, although it may actually be a Remote Main if you have separate power supplies.

The wall mounted unit in the Dressing Room is a wall station, it allows communication without requiring a beltpack or separate mic.

I am a little surprised that it goes through patching, unless it is a pure audio signal like a program audio input then it is carrying DC voltage as well as audio.

The wireless system probably has a base station somewhere. These are typically one channel.

Clear-Com has a lot of good information on their web site, including manuals for current and obsolete equipment.

Is their anything in particular that you wanted to know?
 
As Museav says the fact that it is a 6 Pin XLR means that you have a 2 channel system, hence the Channel A and Channel B on teh 1 RU units

My guess is that the 1RU units are probably MS232s or RM232s and the unit in the dressing room is probably a KB211/KB212

The MS232 is a two channel master station that also powers other units on the Clearcom. The RM 232 is essentially the same unit minus the PSU (you only one one unit powering the system or else you get hum loops) The KB211 is a two channel wall unit with built in mike and the KB212 is a single channel version (Don’t ask me why the single channel unit part number ends in a 2 and the two channel ends in a 1 they just do ).

The Clearcom is basically a party-line or daisy-chain so if you talk on Channel A everyone wired to Channel A hears you, similarly for B. Try talking onto Channel A on one of the 1RU units and have some one walk around and listen at the other positions and make a note of which ones they can hear you on and which ones they cant. Then repeat for Channel B. This will help you see who is on each channel but wont necessarily tell you how it is wired in terms of cable runs.

As for the Jacks it is unusual (at least in my experience) to wire PL to a jack field as it is typically a "wet" signal (i.e. it has voltage on it) although I guess they could just wire the audio pins and have the power go a different route.
Is there a patch cord between the two jacks?
It may be that they wired the unit in the Dressing room to the patch field and took a spur off of the main system to the jack labeled "Clearcom" so that they could disconnect the unit in the dressing room when it isn’t in use.

The part numbers I quoted above may differ from the ones on your units depending on whether the equipment is older or newer. Any Part numbers you can get woudl be a big help.
 
Another thought on the jacks in your patch panel. The high school that I grew up in had a similar set-up. Sticks in my mind that the jacks were audio-only inputs to the intercom system. We could patch a paging mic or a board/house feed from the sound system into the comms for a dressing room feed. Another venue that I worked in had a set of jacks out the back of the comms system that was audio out, and could get mixed into the booth monitors. The best thing you could do would be to follow the wires from the back of the patch panel to wherever they go. It will be time consuming but there is no better way to learn about your rig than chasing cable.
 

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