Author Topic: Batfish Phone System Once More Operational  (Read 4627 times)

Offline Mark Sarsfield

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Batfish Phone System Once More Operational
« on: August 31, 2011, 11:47:48 AM »
Correy Twilley and I finally got around to restoring our sound-powered phone system.  Thankfully, we had enough Type-L handsets to put in just about every compartment.  All that's left to connect is the Ward Rm. phone and XO's phone.  In many cases the original handset cable/cord was cut off at the base of the phone jack.  The wiring is so old and brittle in some jack boxes that we decided to run the new phone cable through the plug hole of the jack, rather than trying to fish out the old cord and installing the new one through the same hole.

Also, by trial and error we figured out that you need to criss-cross alligator clips between the phone terminals in the telephone switch box in order to get the network to work.  One of these days we will make a replicate switch panel and rewire it appropriately.

Our next project is to restore the call bell system for the phones.  We do not have the howlers that the newer boats have.  Our boat uses an AC bell system that is routed through the I.C. Switch Board in the C.R.  Even older boats than ours had a DC system, which would have been more of a pain to work with.  Most bell boxes need new bells, clangers, and selector dials, which we will have to have made.  The fun part will be figuring out the dial positions for each bell box, since they are all unique.

Regards,
Mark Sarsfield
USS Batfish reenactor



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