I need to set up a paging system that covers a 130’ by 80’ by 16’ warehouse with an open cathedral ceiling. Two other rooms 35’ by 45’ also are included. My customer wants “all-page with talkback”. Valcom has an all-page but it is only one-way. Page with talkback can only be done on a zone-by-zone basis. Do I understand this correctly? Does anyone know of an all-page with talkback for an area of this size?
Thanks.

Valcom has a 1 zone talkback paging unit .
MN V-9941A . It works off a CO port . If they are expecting anything close to duplex quaility with talkback paging they are in for a huge let down . Remember the loudest noise takes over the talkback control . So you might want to be upfront about this or you will be there forever adjusting the txmit/rxmit controls !

Never heard of anyone trying that, in that big of an area. Surprised they simply don't go and buy some off the shelf motorolla radios for that.

No they are not expecting duplex quality. Just a typical "shout back" to the caller that they got a message. As I understand it, the zones on Valcom will only supply 2 talkback speakers or horns. The speakers are effective in a moderate noise level at about 30' with talkback. I will need about 10 speakers (horns) to marginally cover the area.

I think your limited to 2 speakers per talk back zone
So you can have a 6 zone v-2006 ahf and have 6 zones of talkback but all call page is 1 way only
as you asked.

I used 4 zones out of 6 ,but customer uses all
call for every page.

Talkback on all those zones just wont happen

Valcom 1-800-825-2661 for tech support

They tried the radio thing but found that the rradios were not holding up or getting lost. So they want to page and hear a reply. One time cost. Nothing lost, broken or needing batteries.

I would think with that many speakers the feedback would kill ya. Even with two you have to have a lot of separation.

They don’t mention a feed back problem in any of the literature

That's 2 talk back speakers , but you can have quite a number of oneway speakers . You hear a page you walk towards a talkback and speak . Paint it orange if needed so the warehouse people can spot it out . 130x80 plus 2 small rooms is not that much .Hell my house/garage is almost that big !

I was thinking about that also. My customer isn't happy with that solution. I don't know if I will find another.

telman3756497, please fill out you're profile so we know who you are.

Thanks and

Valcom has a solution that would allow all-page and a button near each speaker. Press the button and it moves the conversation to just that speaker in talkback mode. Call Valcom - they'll help put it together.
Mike

Bogen makes a 15 watt talk-back amp TBA-15
I have used it with 6-8 speakers and it works fine. Just remember that all speakers are in TB mode together so if there is noise in one area its hard to hear the others.

This makes more sense to me. I haven't put in talk back in years, but I know if you had more than one talk back speaker you had to be real careful on distance do to feed back.

I'm going to give Valcom Tech Support a call to inquire about the button talkback. The Bogen solution also looks interesting. As you pointed out all TBs work together and that may present a problem. I'm thinking about talking with the customer to see if they would consider a one-way system and scatter a few extension phones around that they could use to answer a page call.
Thanks for all your help. If anyone has any other tricks I would appreciate them

I'm thinking about talking with the customer to see if they would consider a one-way system and scatter a few extension phones around that they could use to answer a page call.

Definitely talk with Valcom on this but if it were me I would strongly suggest to the customer that they consider the one-way with several extension phones. With something this large that's the only way to go in my opinion.

-Hal

If all else fails.. they could do the one way page and phones idea. It's not hard to say "Ryan please call xxxx".

Some times its better to KISS.

Why not ask the customer about the two way pagers. I have one that receives a message and I can respond.

The AA batteries in it last for a month and the person would have a record saved of what was requested.

Mine is $10 a month for an alpha/numeric and it would take a long time to meet the cost of a lot of horns and labor to hear a hoot and hollar.

They could probably get a 30 day trial to see if it would work for them. Any computer with internet access can send a text message, any phone could send a coded message. (111 call the office, 222 come to the office, 333 meet customer at shipping platform, etc.)

The pager idea sounds interesting. Do you know anything about self contained (customer owned) systems. I know that would they have a limited range. I would also need a (all-page). Has anyone tried them or know anything about them?

That MIGHT work for you, but they will take just as much of a beating as the radios you stated above. Are you talking about a hospital style paging platform? You can find those, and extender anntenas online. They are called "StaffPage" systems. Be prepared to pay just as much for the complete pager system as you would some paging horns.
This is an example: StaffPage
Remember: This one costs less because it does not handel alphanumeric messaging or a screen.

The Hal Biss answer is the most practical solution for your needs and eliminates the human screw ups
like battery replacement / dropped damaged eq. /
'I left the pager home / the dog ate the pager
joe quit and took it with him

and give the customer acess to an outside call.

My 02 cents

I'm going to discuss things with my customer tomorrow…
Valcom offers talkback page controls with multiple zones. Each zone will handle 2 talkback devices and up to 40 one-way speakers at the same time. I wonder how they avoid feedback if using only 2 talkback speakers in close proximity such as in an office area with no one-way speakers used. In what I have read in their tech documents it is doable. Does anybody have any experience with manufacturers other than Valcom and Bogen?

I left the number for tech support @ Valcom
above ,give them a call.

Valcom and bogen are the most widely stocked
items and easiest to get .

I done a few installations like this the biggest factors are
how much background noise
how big of area and obstructions
how many seperate areas to talkback from
how many locations need paging origination
what type of enviroment
feedback is only an issue if paging telephone is located to close to speakers

You said a lot. I have three rooms 1 is 130’ X 80’, two are aprox. 40’X 60’. All are warehouse space except one of the smaller rooms has a bagging machine in it. You can talk over the noise of the machine but it is rather loud and I think presents a problem there. My customer would like to be able to page with all-page and talkback to all rooms at once. This warehouse stores animal feed and supplies to both large farms and individuals with pets. They have a grain mill and can do custom blending in large volume. The area can get dusty. The large building is open with two rows of metal shelving. It has 16’ walls with an open ceiling to a 5 X 4 pitched roof. It is a new building. The other two rooms are like an older wooden New England barn. Post and beam with 8’ to 10’ceilings. The help is always on the move so a paging system would be ideal. It’s a one-time charge and no batteries to change or equipment to replace.

I quick suggestion would be put the Bogen TBA-15 with horns in all the quite areas and setup oneway speaker(no talkback) with phone near the bagging machine. Owner could make all-call page and hear people talback except from bagging room they would have to use phone.

I just went to Bogen.com. This might just do it.
I'm trying to figure out how many speakers I can use. The system has a 15W output. So I will use 15W paging horns. I can't find a spec to how many I can use. I'll contact Tech support tomorrow. They also offer a free design service.
Thanks for the info and suggestion.

This has been an interesting day. Bogen told me that with the area that I had, I would have to turn up the power on the horns so high that I would be limited to 3 or 4, which is not enough. The supply will handle 15 W. Valcom did have a solution with a V-5323105 control along with a SMA-120W Amp and SX15-T horns set to 7.5W. These are 70 V horns, which would require 16ga shielded twisted pair. When I put the cost of that system together it blew the budget. I think that this thing might “boil-down” (no pun intended, it’s sugaring season here in Vermont) to A single zone Valcom Talkback V-9941A with the proper power supply. This would give two zones of talkback, which they could, strategically place in the most populated areas and then scatter a few 1-way speakers around with a phone within reasonable distance.

That large Valcom talkback is not on the Valcom.com site. It can be seen at www.pagepac.com. It is a Valcom product. The Amp can be seen at www.clarity-com.com. You can see the horns there also.

This solution sounds fimilar to one that was posted on March 17 around 9PM. Good luck with your install and remember try to be up front about the loudest sound taking control of the talkbak switching .

Hi OBTW,
What do you mean when you say "up front about the loudest sound taking control of the talkback switching”. I thought the phone system controls the (talk and listen). In other words if the person who pages remains silent then he can monitor through both talkback devices. Is this thinking correct?

What I am saying is , if the background noise is so loud , the person using the handset will never be able to talk loud enough to switch the circuit back to their control . Causing a choppy conversation at best . It is the Page unit that controls the switch back to talk/listen . Look at it as a simplex speaker phone ! Hope this helps

OBTW is correct, it's a VOX circuit and the coversation will be very choppy in a high background noise environment.

I have installed a few and IMHO, they work great in an area used for office/storage, but not for any manufacturering or forklift traffic. The other problem is the employees that have a shop radio playing in their area.

I hope you are aware that you must have a spare CO port on the phone system to use this type of paging as well.

If you only need to talk from the office to warehouse then an intercom may serve your porpose better something like Aiphone

We installed a Bogen solution using the TBA15 mentioned earlier. Feedback became the biggest problem at one of the docks her in San Francisco. We eventually had to just install a one way setup and had two ESI system phones setup in the warehouse area to call back. On top of that, some of the fork lift operators normally carried cordless phones running off analog station ports from the ESI system. They also used those to reply to a page.

Just another resolution to consider...

I also now have a practically new Bogen TBA15 I have no use for. PM or email me and trust me, you can take it off my hands less than 1/2 the price.

-MO

Thanks,
The TBA15 solution as a whole appears to be a little too expensive for my customer right now. You know how things sometimes go. By the time the customer thinks about communications, the budget is shot so corners are cut. They are considering their options and I’m waiting to hear. As I said earlier, they most likely will go with a single zone 1-way page system with a few phones scattered about. If that is the case I will go with a simple 1-zone Viking. It uses standard unshielded UTP and the horns are less expensive than 70V systems. They have already contracted a phone system from me and the paging system was an afterthought when someone said “Hey, what are we gonna-do. We can’t yell to each other any more”.