Calling all telephone/crypto/comm guys! (Warning: Geeky!)

Alright, I’ll get right to the point.

I like cool toys. Therefore, I’m going to by a pair of TA-954 desk phones (brand spankin’ new US Army surplus - never been used), and am going to try to wire 'em up so I can use it as my normal desk phone at home.

Some of the specs are confusing me. But, what I basically am looking for is anyone that’s either tried this, or has been able to simply slap a 2-wire copper landline into the side of the phone to get it to work. I don’t know what a typical “Baby Bell” runs on phone lines as voltage, and I don’t know what kind of carrier frequency it runs on. Yet, I know this thing usually works on a particular type of switchboard.

I guess my question is: is a military switchboard line and a typical residential line similar enough that I can get away with this, or will I have just a really cool looking paperweight?

Tripler
I like my toys. . .

I don’t know if this will help you but here are the specs for it:

Technical Characteristics
Channel Interface-Field Wire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-wire field cable
Transmission Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 km (2.4 mi) max
Input Power-Power Drain:
On Hook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .300 mW, max
Off Hook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 W, max
Power Requirement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .+24 to +56 V DC
Current Drain:
On Hook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12.5 Ma, +24 V DC 5.0 Ma, +56 V DC
Off Hook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62 Ma, +24 V DC
25 Ma, +56 V DC
Weight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2.7 kg (5.8 lb)

I searched through a few message boards devoted to military gear, and it seems like the TA-954 can’t be hooked up to commercial telco lines. However, I did find a way to hook up rotary military phones if you ever need that – you need to change the rotary setting from 4-wire (military standard) to 2-wire (commercial standard). But it didn’t look like this was an option for the TA-954.

Oh well…at the very least its a cool topic of discussion at your next dinner party.

For anyone that’s interested, here is a picture of one.

The TA-954 is a digital telephone. It won’t work. If you can get a TA-312, I know those work, but there’s no dial – maybe your telco still supports the ring generator? In any case, you could get a touch-tone dialer from Radio Shack.

If nothing else, you should be able to replace the guts with those for a normal civilian telephone, and just hook up to the original speaker and microphone. It won’t be “authentic”, but it’d still look the same, and serve just as well as a conversation piece.

Aaah, just the sort of answer I was looking for. I assume if it sends a digital signal, there’s gotta be some rectifier or modem on some sort of switchboard to convert it to analog. I’ll just have to keep looking.

And Chronos, I may do just that. . . I’ll let you know.

Tripler
I’m still gonna buy 'em. :smiley:

Cool! It’s got the ‘other’ four DTMF tone-combinations (or at least, buttons for them)! If you press the FO button, can you make a priority call to the local pizza place during peak hour? :slight_smile: