Can anyone tell me if a WE 401A or B card is the same as an ITT 401A or B card? Same with other 400 series cards? Will they all work in a WE 551C KSU? Or do you have to use WE cards only in the WE KSU and ITT cards in an ITT KSU? You get the drift..is there really a big difference in the cards?

Yes, they are pretty much the same between manufacturers. Yes, they are interchangeable between brands.

The cards are interchangeable between manufacturers - WE, ITT, AE, Sanbar, Brand Rex - They'd all work in any equipment. That was one of the glories of 1A2.

As I recall, the 401A cards (any manufacturer) require an "A" lead. The 401B cards (any mfg.) do not.

Sam

Ed, did you not say at one time that there were no MOH cards for the WE 551C except a rare one made by Sanbar?

That's the only one that provides DC isolation so that it can be used without any additional hardware other than the music source. Other MOH line cards require a separate 403 card and mounting to keep each line card electrically isolated from the common music source. Otherwise, the parties on hold will be able to hear (and talk to) each other.

ITT made a K400-TPL card that did the same thing, but those will likely be even more difficult to find than the San Bar ones.

I never knew Brand Rex made 1A2 cards...I only heard of them as part of General Cable. Can someone elaborate?

Jeff -

You almost made me doubt myself. I went down to the dreaded basement and found:

LC-400E
Brand Rex Division
Teltronics

Maybe someone else knows? Did they get bought by General Cable? They used to make all sorts of electronics.

Sam

Brand Rex's cable manufacturing division somehow merged with Texarkana Wire and cable. I don't remember who was the wife in that deal. Eventually, they ended up in the sack with General Cable, but again, I'm not sure exactly how it transpired. This all happened back in the days before merger-mania was daily news.

I believe that the Teltronics division of Brand Rex ended up going to Harris. At some point, Exxon actually had a part in their ownership if my memory serves me correctly.

Teltronics is still around. They used to make the SRX system with the Vision Phones.

The funny thing is - I don't remember where I got it. It's NIB and dated 1981.

Oh, and it says "MOH....requires a separate audio supply WHICH PROVIDES DC ISOLATION from the common audio sources"

So it won't work for Bill. I might have a Sanbar 4200 though. I have to look. I solved my problem of MOH by only supplying it to the first of my 2 lines.

I always expected I would run into a 403 (after all I put hundreds, if not thousands of them in).

I never saw one.

I'd forgotten about not having music on line 2 till the other day when I called home and got put on hold - on line 2.

Sometimes I think about swapping out the system for something new and fancy.

And then I laugh at myself and go have another beer.

Sam

OK, guys, remember it's all about me. [Just kidding!] So what do you recommend that I get. It sounds as if they are a few alternatives. Would anyone be willing to sell me something that works?

Hey Ed -

Would Bill need the 4200 Sanbar or was it the 4201 for MOH. I don't remember.

I do remember that they had a couple of odd ball 400 type cards - There was one just for Government jobs that prevented eavesdropping. I can't remember the part # for that one either.

Sam

I must've installed a few hundred of the Brand Rex 400E's back in the day. They were less expensive and more reliable than the more common ITT K440E, SC400, NE or AE line cards, however they also differed slightly in how they handled isolation of th MOH supply. You could setup MOH with a line level direct music feed or use an ITT 403 MOH card with them.

Not all 1A2 line (or intercome) cards would directly interchange between vendors. Different models or vendors often had small but important functional differences.

There were also a number of line and intercom cards with extra and/or extended features. SanBar in particular had some "special" 400 type line and intercom cards for special purpose uses that were pretty slick. ITT, TelTone, Melco and others made intercom cards and intercom/paging units that were all "the same, only different".

Somewhere around here I may still have a pair of the TelTone or SanBar 400 line cards that would sense line voltage to monitor a CO bridged off premise location. There were also plug in line cards with automatic ring down and off premise intercom and such. Some required special wiring on the line card positions, others used a standard "cell" position, just punch down after reading the print...

So Macy do you have any of these "special" cards?