NuTone intercoms

[Cybrvanr]

Here's a neat site that sells the new NuTone intercom systems, as well as service the vintage ones

They sell replacement parts for the older systems too, so if your intercom system doesn't work, repair it!

http://www.rinutonedistr.com/oldstuff.htm

 

[Kevinpreston3]

Thank you for the link

I had just started researching this, and was looking for some place that had the history on it!

I remember touring model homes in the 60s/70s, and we would see these with the FM feature.

 

[westytoploader]

Our neighbor's house (built 1970 or 1971) has an original NuTone intercom. It's really neat how you can play the radio in literally every room in the house. Some individual units didn't work, but the base worked fine last time I messed with it.

That house was for sale the same time as ours in late winter--early Spring '98. I would have bought it just for the intercom!

 

[Designgeek]

Interesting! I checked out the link. We had one of those in the house when I was a kid. And each bedroom had a remote unit in the wall. Took a while before I figured out it could be used for whole-house eavesdropping. At which point a quick trip to Radio Snack got me a switch with which I could turn mine *off* entirely.

Today the thing to put in a house is a small PBX, like a Panasonic KXTA-824 (or KXTDA-50 if you're going to do Home Office in a serious way). The cool thing about these is, they have analog station capability, so you can hook up your antique dialphones and they will work fine. Three-digit extensions numbers to dial between rooms. And you can't use it as an electronic snoop. The new version also has a video doorphone option, so you can see who's there before you answer.

 

[kenwashesmonday]

I remember seeing a late 50s VM record changer that flipped down out of the wall in a late 50s kitchen. I offered to fix it, but they weren't interested.

Ken D.

 

[jaxsunst]

My in-laws house (built in late 60's, early 70's) has a working Nu-Tone system. They use it for playing the radio throughout the house and on the patio. It is also handy for when you are downstairs and want someone who is upstairs to bring something down with them.

I am starting to see them come back in newer high-end homes. My cousin has done that will play his ipod.

 

[rinso]

My aunt and Uncle have the system pictured on the left, it was a vacuum tube-type unit. I doubt they ever used it to its greatest extent. When it was on, there was always a bit of AC hum in the background. The FM-AM radio could be played throughout the household, and there was an RCA mono jack for connecting a record player. Now it just sits idle, in tribute to a technology gone by.

 

[Cybrvanr]

I don't have an intercom system, but I currently have the old PBX system that was in my church installed in my house. It's an early 80's / late 70's Executone Equity II system. It works just like an intercom in the fact that any phone can call any room of the house. It's an analog system, so it connected right up to my ordinary household phone lines. The cool part is I have "music on hold" and the music can also be programmed to come out of the speakerphone if you want it to also. The phone system has that familiar charastic early electronic ring tone that's always heard in TV shows and movies from the seventies. The cool part I like is the clear plastic buttons that light up and blink when lines are in use, on hold or ringing. I put the base station in my home office room, and it has a button for each extension. I'm not even using all the extensions that it can handle, and I only have 2 of the 5 incoming lines connected too.

To program the system, you need to know a little bit of binary. Programming is done at the control module, and involves pressing buttons to illuminate sequences of LED lights on the motherboard to set the functions. Everything from what extensions ring, to tone vs pulse dial, hold time, etc can all be programmed into it!

It's a fun system, and I'm suprised others havent caught on to installing old analog PBX systems in their homes when they are removed from offices. There's a ton of them out there for the taking!!!

 

[petek]

Cybr

Can you post a pic of your main unit...thanks

 

[tolivac]

My Mom had a house built in Florida in 1975 that had a NuTone Intercom.she used it as a radio.We would have it on when the hurricanes were prowling about.Was handy for that.I installed a simple Nutone intercom at a gate to building a a radio station transmitter site.You could communicate to someone at the gate and "buzz" him in.
I did intall a "Key" type PBX telephone system at a radio station-many radio stations use these old systems becuase they are inexpensive for them to buy used and have radio station engineers install them.Learned a little about phone systems that way-the fellow I worked with knew them well.The digital ones used today-have one in the facility where I work-Understand itrs basics-but thats it-In fact it is contracted out to Sprint for maintenance-the station has a contract with sprint to work on the sytem.I have my hands full already running transmitters and fixing them when they break.The phone work was sort of fun though.Those 25 pair cables!!that system my friend and I put in was an old Western Electric analog unit.It was a wonder it still worked-shows the duriablility of those.

 

[kenmore1978]

Intercom

My Grandparents house, built in 1963, had a Nu Tone Intercom in it. Almost never used as an intercom, but the radio got used a lot.