[GreenKeys] OT question for the telephone guys

[kf6pqt]

Gil mentioned an analog PBX recently. Where can I learn more about
this thing, (or similar) and where can I find one for free, or super
cheap?

The idea of the "toy telephone Co." sounds kinda cool!

Thanks and 73,
Jason kf6pqt

From: gil at baudot.net
Subject: Re: [GreenKeys] what do you think? -- now telephone (and
       2-stroke motocross) stuff
To: "Steve Schlink" <sschlink at mindspring.com>
Cc: greenkeys at mailman.qth.net


Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Hi Steve:

Yes, I agree with you that a little PBX box is just dandy for connecting
phones, both old and new.  Don't know the Merlin line, but I bet they
are very nice.  I have an old Panasonic analog PBX (604 maybe?) that
connects a princess phone in my 10-yo daughter's room, a slimline in my
8-yo son's room, a hanging-handset phone in their playroom, and a
candlestick and WE 202 in other rooms.  Of course this requires wiring
that allows this -- before we moved into the house, I ran CAT5e cables
from all rooms to a closet location, so it was easy to just mount the
PBX up on the wall, crimp connectors onto the cables, and plug things
in.  You don't need to use fancy twisted-pair cable;  a couple of
lengths of rusty barbed wire, stapled to the ceiling, will work just
fine.

It is very simple to set up, since the PBX provides the proper dial tone
and ringing voltages (and each extension can be set for DTMF or pulse
mode).  The kids just pick up a phone and dial an extension number to
call each other.  I have not connected an outside line, but when they
are older I likely will, and then they can just dial 9 for an outside
line-- gotta show the kids that landlines aren't dead yet (yes, they
both have cell phones now).  The older phones just need a subset circuit
to interface to a modern line (Steve:  any circuits you like, or do you
use NOS old boards like most of us?).



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