atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems 1A2 and Comkey Telephones & Systems 760 speaker

I know what the 107 and 108 speakers were used for, but never did understand what a 760 speaker was used for. Can anyone shed some light on this? Thanks

The 107 was the "Orator" or "Spokesman" a stand alone speaker for monitoring one side of a line. The 108 was the speaker part of the 4B Speakerphone.

I believe the 760 was the speaker part of the 3B speakerphone (the one that predated the 4B).

Sam

Could the speaker be used for external paging?

No, it is part of the 3B system, which included the speaker, the transmitter and the control unit. It cannot be used by itself.

The 107 speaker could be used, after a fashion. I had one wired to a 401 card. It was down in the kids playroom and I used it to call them to dinner. It worked fine for that.

Sam

Would that require intercom?

The 401 card IS an Intercom (Manual). It is a card the same size as a 400 card. It plugs into a slot in the KSU. It does NOT connect to a CO line. You connect it to stations and then they can talk to each other. The card provides a talkpath. If you connect the 107 to it then you can "page" through the 107.

Sam

Thanks for the info. So you are saying that the 760 speaker was the speaker for the 3A speakerphone system? What did the other components look like? What is the 106 speaker used for?

Bill:

Have a look HERE.

Thanks, Ed, I had forgotten about that resource. Now one further question about the 3A: the transmitter looks familiar, but the speaker seems varied from some of the other systems I have seen. Did the 3A always use the 760 or different models? Are there different models (such as 760A or 760B) of the 760? What did the transmitter and speaker hook into?

I haven't seen one since I was a teenager, but I seem to recall that there was a fairly large control unit for the 3A/B system It was in a gray enclosure about 9" square and about 6" deep that mounted on the wall near the station being served. It was about half the size of a 551 shoebox KSU. All of the cables originated in there; there was a field of dozens of screw terminals.

Ed -

You must be slipping. It's a type 55 (either A or B) control unit and it's not 9" square by 6". It's only 8" x 8 &7/32" x 4 & 11/32" deep.

I swear you're amazing.

The only external loudspeaker was the 760. I don't think there was an "A" or a "B". If you got a panel phone with the built in speakerphone it used a 762A speaker.

I had a 3B speakerphone for a while. When the 4A's started coming out there were a ton of them available.

Sam

Sam, I'm still laughing at that one. You are a funny guy.

Please tell me you actually measured one of those and it was not by memory

Jeff -

I haven't seen one in years.

But I did cheat.

I looked up the specs.

Ed's memory is amazing.


Sam

Thanks for the info. That brought up a couple other things though - I never knew there was a 3B speakerphone. How did it differ from the 3A? Was there ever a 4B speakerphone system?

The speakerphone, to the best of my knowledge was a "Type 3". The earlier models were 3A, the later were 3B. Whether this was the result of the change from 55A to 55B control units I don't know. A lot of products took incremental changes that did not effect most functionality. Speakerphones were one example of this. Another example was the 584 panel - the mainstay of large 1A2 work.

There was an "A" version (before my time) that I believe was wire wrapped instead of amphenol connected, though I won't swear to it. The "B" version offered three interruptor option possibilities (Master, slave and external lamp relay). The "C" version which lasted through the '60s, 70's and '80s did away with the "B" option for external lamp relays. But in 99.9% of the situations you could mix panels on the job and not even notice any differences.

I believe that was the reason for A&B nomenclature, If there was not a major difference and the components were, for the most part, interchangeable then you got a letter upgrade. A major change - like the one from the type 3 to the type 4 speakerphone got a "full" nomenclature upgrade.

BTW, I don't believe there was a 4B speakerphone, but I'm sure someone will chime in if there was.

And, just to be difficult, I believe the best speakerphone of the time was the Automatic Electric 880 which, unlike its Western Electric counterparts was full duplex.

Sam

Precision Components' version of the 4A was marketed as the 4B, but aside from the beige-colored connecting blocks, power transformer, etc., I never noticed a functional or electrical difference. I know that the parts were interchangeable between PCI and WECO because we did that all the time.

Was the 4A full duplex? Was the 4A actually a significant upgrade to the 3?

I do not believe the 4A was duplex. As far as an upgrade to the 3B - I thought it was more modern, smaller and didn't require the big 55B control unit, but otherwise.....As I recall, sound quality was about the same.

Sam

OK, I recently bought a 106A control unit - a small plastic box with a couple of buttons on it. What is the purpose of this unit? It appears to have the same funtions as the one on the speakerphone. Is it a remote?

Any chance of a picture, top and bottom?

Ed, I sent you a photo by personal e-mail because I don't know how to load one up here. Let me know if you didn't receive it.

Bill:

I got the pictures. I've seen those units before but I can't remember what they were used with. I think it was an attempt in improving the 4A in the early-mid 80's. Here they are for someone else to see who may be more familiar:

Thanks. Hope this jogs someone else's memory.

As long as we are talking about obscure parts, has anyone ever heard of a 694 WE speaker? Outwardly, it looks like a 107.

The 694 was used in the Home (or Farm) Interphone system.

Arthur -

Did you ever see a Home Interphone actually installed? I remember we were all fascinated by the specs and drawings but no one I ever met had actually ever seen one, much less installed one.

Sam

My landlady in Washington,D.C. had one and it was really neat. I stayed in her home in 1983 and it still worked fine then. She had fallen on hard times and had it removed to save money. After it was removed the de-installer told her she could have paid a paltry sum to buy it outright but it was too late then. It had a button on the phone (Princess) that she turned one way to activate the speakers in the house and turned it the other way to activate the front door speaker.

Is that the system where the door speakers looked similar to an E1 ringer with louvers in the cover? If so, I removed many of them in DC in the mid 80's.

Yes, I was going to add that I did not see the 694 speaker as part of that setup. All the speakers looked the E1 ringer with the ubiquitous gray 4 conductor wire stapled to the walls.

I know this may seem after the fact but I just discovered that the 106 control unit referenced above has a little trap door on the bottom. The hook-up is with what looks like the serial port computer connections. Never seen any telephone device use anything like this. Any thoughts?

The 106 is a control unit from the AT&T "Quorum" Conference Room Speakerphone system.

Thanks, Arthur, I wondered whether it had something to do with that although I have never personally seen one. Somewhat related to speakerphones, I wondered if anyone could help me with a supply source for the 95B1 transformer for the 4A speakerphone power supply? I have the transformers, I just need the connector that plugs into the amphenol connector. It looks like a mini-amphenol connector and plugs in with the mini-plugs with the speaker and transmitter.

The transformers are a piece of cake, but the connector cable is a different story. I'm almost positive that you can send the AC power in via spare leads in the 223 type cord. I know that you can do this when using an 82B/C adapter. Which one of these are you using for your 4A?

I don't have an 82 here in front of me, but I think Ed is correct that you can probably feed the AC into a couple of screws in the 82 adapter.

I can't edit my post, so here's an update.

I have here a Precision Components 82C adapter. It has two screw terminals marked "AC."

I presume that those are paralleled with the small Amphenol plug, so you could use either way to feed the AC into the system.

Also, I think you need an 85, not a 95 transformer.

You are correct. There are all kinds of ways to feed power to those things! I was always a fan of simply sending them power from the KSU over a spare pair and avoiding the transformers altogether. So many service calls for unplugged transformers or a broken wire on one of the terminals.

You were not supposed to use grounded power (such as provided by a KSU) for the 3-type speakerphones. It made them do flaky stuff, I seem to recall.

Okay, thanks for the update but it did not work and I'm not sure why. I have several 2565s with a 4A speakerphone attached via the 82 connecting block and yes, I do run the two wires from the transformer (BTW, what is the difference between the 85 and 95 transformer?) to the AC screws in the 82 and it works fine. The problem I am having involves a 2500S single line phone with a cord that has the patterned? Amphenol connecting plug, so all the components have to plug into this plug. I cannot plug it into the 82 because both the phone and 82 are male. Any other ideas?

Since this topic started with obscure speakers, does anyone know what the 758A dated 9-55 is? Is it a speaker or microphone (small enough to be microphone)?

I can't find any reference to a 758A. Got any pictures?

Sam

The 592 tel set uses the 565 form factor, equipped with the guts of (roughly) the 666-type transmitter as used in the 3-type speakerphone system.

The 758A is the speaker that goes with it.

Arthur -

You're the best!

In 40+ years in the business (most in NYC) I've never seen that phone - and I've seen some strange ones.

Sam

I saw a picture of this on the internet and this predated the 3A and 4A speakerphone systems. Here's a couple more questions: I read somewhere that the 694 speaker and 666 microphone went with the 3A speakerphone and the 760 speaker went with the 3B speakerphone. Is this what you all recall? Also I know Ev has told us the difference between the 760 and the 107, but what is the real difference between them? They appear to have come off the same assembly line but just are stamped with a different number on the bottom. Now I have seen variations of both with 4-wire requiring AC input and on-off switches and volume control, but still I wonder what was the functional difference between the two?

Not quite correct...

The 3A and 3B types of speakerphone used the same components. The 55-type control units were the difference. Anytime the Bell System improved a product that would still work with older versions, they incremented the alpha character which appears after the numeric.

Both the 3A and 3B types used the 760-type speaker. It was just that...a speaker in a plastic housing. Yes, the housing for a 107 is exactly the same as the housing for a 760, but that is not anything more than good planning.

The guts are entirely different:

The 760 is just a speaker. It is driven by the amplifier inside the 55-type speakerphone control unit. The 107 is a speaker and an audio amplifier...a monitoring unit that is wired in parallel with the receiver leads of its associated tel set.

The 694 is a part of the 2B Business Interphone System, which is a selective intercom system that is similar in operation to the ITT Call Announcer System. It is larger than the 107/760 units, and has two rotary controls.

*************

Sam, in 1965, you could have bought a 592 tel set from GrandCom on West 35th Street, just off of 6th Avenue. It sat on their shelves for years, with no takers. Recently, one on Ebay sold to a friend of mine (a former Gene Silvers protege) for $1700.00.

Great, thanks, Arthur for this clarification!

Arthur -

There's a few blasts from the past. Of course in 1965 I couldn't have afforded it - no matter what it cost. I was still in High School and working stock and delivery at Lovell's Pharmacy, two days a week, 4 hours a night for $1.25 an hour. I would splurge my earnings at the recently opened Di Fara's pizza (Still open and consistently voted the best in NYC) and at Artie's Poolroom (long since closed down).

Gene Silvers......I haven't seen him since 1977.I haven't heard of him in almost as long. He may still owe may a paycheck or two. I can't remember. :confused:

Sam

Ok, so no one has answered my question about a 106 speaker. I read that it was designed to be connected to a 3xx switching system whatever that is, never to a CO line. Can anyone enlighten me on what the 106 is used for?