phone calling?

Discussion in 'Survival Communications' started by LoganW, Jan 5, 2014.


  1. LoganW

    LoganW Monkey

    Hi - I was wondering if there is something you can call phones on that is not a phone, that is solar powered/crank powered?


    Thanks!!!

    Logan
     
  2. kellory

    kellory An unemployed Jester, is nobody's fool. Banned

    if you are thinking like military phones, they either run by wire from phone to phone, or radio, I believe. Now we do have an option of IDEN phones, which act like long distance walkie-talkies. something like these. and they will work without a phone line. Motorola i560 Yellow Sprint Cellular Phone | eBay
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 26, 2015
  3. Yard Dart

    Yard Dart Vigilant Monkey Moderator

    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 26, 2015
  4. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    All phones require some power... Either from the line, or internal to the instrument itself. If it is a device that is made to only talk to a like instrument, on a Dry Pair, Then the power is local to the instrument. If it is connected to a Switch, then the power can come, either from the Switch, or from internal. You can never get something out of nothing. There is no Free Lunch.
     
    Yard Dart likes this.
  5. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    The TA-1 and TA-312s can run without the D cell batteries in a mode called 'sound powered' TA-312~PT - RadioNerds
    This doesn't really answer the OP though as it looks like he'd like to be able to call real phones from something that isn't a phone. I don't know how one would do this unless you were looking to use something like Skype on a solar charged laptop?

     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2014
    Yard Dart likes this.
  6. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    Solar powered Ham Rig thru a Repeater Phone patch....
     
  7. William Warren

    William Warren Monkey+++

    A few years back, I was asked to find a solution for a campsite problem with my son's Boy Scout troop: they had wound up in a "split" site at their summer camp, with another troop between their two campsites, and they needed to have a phone between them.

    Of course, cellular would have been my first choice, but it turned out that no two scout leaders who would be there at the same time had phones which also had service in the White Mountains, and the Scouts weren't allowed to have cell phones (or any other electronic devices), so the Scoutmaster was uncomfortable with the example the adults might set by using them.

    The obvious solution was to use field phones, and I got a pair of TA-43 phones from Ebay and unwound a 500 foot reel of "JK" which the scouts buried for me. They worked fine, and the kids loved to crank the magneto and listen for the echo from the other site in the quiet hours of the morning (something that my son could hear, but I could not).

    Now, the reason I mention this is that, when I was looking for "field phone" on Ebay, I came across two or three examples of military phones which I had never heard of before, such as the "SCI Digital Non-secure Voice Terminal (TA-1042 A/U)". I hope that you know more about these than I do, and I'd greatly appreciate your answers to these questios:
    1. Can these digital phones work directly with another digital unit?
    2. Is a digital terminal really an ISDN phone?
    3. If it is, does it have a "U" or a "T" interface, or can it use either?
    4. Have you ever used them? Will they work with ISDN PBX's?
    I'm hoping that I can get a TA-1042 or similar phone to work at Emcom deployment sites, and get some bargains compared to the well-known versions. Thanks for your help!

    William Warren
     
  8. Yard Dart

    Yard Dart Vigilant Monkey Moderator

    I have not used these specifically, as I used the TA-312 in our units. But reading the details I found, they will work fine as a point to point phone or in a system on common battery with switchboard. They are unsecure which is fine for most applications....just remember if used post SHTF to use code words between camps so if someone intercepts the phone line inadvertently, they don't get much information.

    TA-1042A~U - RadioNerds

     
  9. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    Looks like it takes 3 Pairs for each connection, so EtherNet Wire would need to be used, to make this work. Costs about $100US/1000'....
    I think some SECURE iDen/ISM Phones would be cheaper, require NO Wire, and have much better Range. They can be Solar Powered with little issue..... .....
     
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