Panasonic - Best way to make a private home phone system?

[trainman]

I live in  two flat building. Relatives live downstairs from me. I wanted to put in either an intercome or a phone system for private use using vintage components. I thing the phone may be better as I have a few older phones to use but no intercoms.

Is there a way to wire two old phones to ring, but operate like an intercom system?

Or do I need to find a PBX?

[contraste]

I recently bought an older Panasonic pbx from ebay and am in the process of connecting my phones to it.

It works well with all my phones ranging from the Panasonic system phone (it came with the pbx) to a WE2500 touch tone and of course my two rotary WE 500's.

I had to find programming manuals online and understanding how to operate it fully will be a steep learning curve but out of the box it's great for regular and intercom calls.

I can connect eight extension phones so it suits me fine because I've got the bug and am eyeing up some more classic Western Electric phones..

[trainman]

what was the model # of the pbx?

[contraste]

what was the model # of the pbx?

KX-TA624, you need a system phone to program it, something like the KX-T7730.

[BDM]

There are many different small business PBX systems out there. Some even date way back to the 50s. They do pop up every now and then. With a 300/ohm resistor, and a 9v battery, you could simply make them work. But other than for testing purposes, that's not a good way for what you want or need.

A proper small PBX would serve you perfectly for your plans. You can find those from elaborate to simple.

[Steve]

 Maybe try something like this?


http://tinyurl.com/c3ft4g

[AET]

My dad said when he was a kid, his folks lived upstairs and his grandparents lived in the finished basement in the house he grew up in.  To contact between the two 'flats' they had battery operated intercom phones that looked like 500's.  Pink and Green.  He says my grandparents probably still have them.  I'm thinking of sending a pic of my new collection to Grandpa and see if maybe he'll contribute