As I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun to understand that “growing-up” is sort of a nebulous (and perhaps just stupid) term. When we’re kids, we can’t wait to become adults. Then we become adults, and before you know it, you reach an age where you wonder why it was so important to take everything so damned seriously. (Well, maybe not all of us do that, but I have.) In any case, these days, I find myself embracing my inner 5-year-old, my inner 12-year-old, and my inner whatever-else-year-old. And one thing I’ve wanted as long as I can remember was a key telephone system — which must sound ridiculous (because it is ridiculous). In any case, it took a while (a few decades), but I now have one, and the younger me inside my head is doing back flips.
Let me start by attempting to explain the back story…
For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved telephones. Not the ones we carry around in our pockets these days, but the kind that were wired into everyone’s homes when I was (much) younger. It seemed magical to me that I could pick-up a handset (remember those?), hear a dial tone, move the dial around with my finger a few times (when I was really young) or mash buttons on a Touch-Tone dial, and in a few moments, I could “reach out and touch someone” as the ads used to say.
But even more fascinating to me were business telephone systems. Maybe it was the now-dated Hollywood fantasy of a secretary answering the phone, placing someone on hold, ringing “the boss” about a call holding on line 2. Maybe it was the bright incandescent lighting underneath the clear plastic buttons, flashing for incoming calls, winking for calls on hold, or solid for a line in-use. Maybe it was the fact that my fantasy play as a young child was often “playing store” or “playing company” which, of course, would involve using a pretend business phone.
As I got older, I continued to be fascinated. In my teens, I played the telephone installer in our high school production of Barefoot in the Park. (Of course I did!) And in one of my first professional jobs, I ended-up being the guy who volunteered to learn how to program and maintain the company’s phone system. Later, I even spent a short period installing residential telephones.
Fast Forward to Today
Like most people, I carry a smartphone around these days, and while I was late to the party, I did finally disconnect my beloved landline in favor of porting the phone number I’ve had for decades to an additional mobile phone. But it was that loss of old fashioned dial tone on an old fashioned landline that sent me down this path, albeit indirectly. While much of it is in storage bins these days, I have an extensive collection of analog telephones, and without a landline, they’re utterly useless. Soon enough, I became compelled to rectify that.
The first step was setting-up VoIP service, and connecting that to an ATA (analog telephone adapter), routing its output to the inside wiring of my home for the sole purpose of having conventional dial tone in the various phone jacks here. The reason? So that I could connect one of those vintage telephones in my collection, lift the receiver, hear a dial tone, and still use them. It wasn’t that I’d seriously place calls; at least not very much. But it was important to me that if I were keeping my old Princess telephones, Trimline telephones, and my beloved 300 sets (a/k/a the “Lucy phone”), I wanted to be able to use them.
But as I was exploring things and reacquainting myself with some of the phones in my collection, I was reminded of that long-held fantasy: To own a key system, and specifically, a 1A2 key system — the Bell System designation for the generation of telephone system I always was endlessly fascinated by. (As an aside, I’m hardly the only one. It doesn’t take much web searching to unearth a whole lot of people who are equally fascinated by them, and who have set-up small key systems using all vintage gear.)
I started doing my homework, believing that with effort, I might be able to cobble together the pieces of a real, vintage, small 1A2 setup, and perhaps find enough documentation to get it working. But then I found something even more interesting: A modern implementation of a small 1A2 system.
The Seriss KSU
The Seriss KSU is a take on the classic 1A2 key system, provided as a single board solution that supports up to two lines, and four extensions. It can be expanded with a second board to support four lines, and eight extensions. Either way, it’s designed to support a range of vintage 1A2 telephones, and make it possible for these old phones to be fully usable again. Better still? It’s not outrageously expensive.
Just seeing that image for the first time quickened my pulse… A tabletop full of multi-button key telephones all lit-up, partying like it’s 1999 1979? Bring it!
These boards are the brainchild of Greg Ercolano, who in the mid 2000s had the idea of exploring if it was possible whip-up something that would enable these old phones to operate in the same way as a classic 551-type KSU (e.g., 551A). While key systems could be quite large (physically and in terms of the extension and line counts), the 551 series was intended for small applications with up to four lines, although exact configurations varied (greatly). Greg and many others refer to these smaller vintage systems as “shoebox” or “breadbox” systems given their relatively compact size.
In the years since his initial foray, Mr. Ercolano has continued to polish and refine his 1A2 board, adding various improvements and refining things along the way. What he sells today through his company, Seriss Corporation, is a quite mature offering. The more adventurous and electronics-minded can take the resources he provides and build one themselves. And while I am, in fact, electronics-minded, I wasn’t all that interested in the minutia of this particular potential project, opting instead to purchase an assembled, tested board.
Setting Things Up
The first step in setting-up my key system was getting a phone. In the past, I recall having a key telephone or two, but searching the bins in my storage unit uncovered nothing other than some spare parts. (A younger me must surely have parted them out for some reason or another.) I did find a Bell System 4A speakerphone that I could use; more on that later.
It was Mr. Ercolano that happened to send a few eBay links to key telephones for sale in one of our exchanges, including one for a white 2565 desk phone in good cosmetic condition at a below-market price point. That was an easy decision; once it arrived, I got it cleaned-up and ready.
Next was to order the board itself. Once that order was placed, I prepared the structured wiring cabinet in my basement, drilling holes and setting nylon posts and spacers in-place based the measurements in the board layout diagrams on the Seriss website. I also changed some things around with the telephone jacks near the ATA.
Once the board arrived, it was it a matter of just mounting it, making the connections, and giving it a go. Unsurprisingly, it worked perfectly. (The header image with this post shows the board installed.)
The only non-operational bit? Ringing, but there’s a perfectly good reason for that. Ringers (such as the physical bells on older phones like my 2565) require alternating current at a specific frequency, and to produce that requires a separate ring generator source. The Seriss KSU has a connection point for a ring generator, which supports authentic vintage ones, or more modern types. Mr. Ercolano has recommended some specific models, and I’ve ordered a pair of them. But since they ship from overseas via the slow boat, it’ll be a bit before they arrive.
One alternative that the KSU provides is to ring using the buzzer that’s a traditional feature of classic 1A2 key system telephone sets, but as luck would have it, there is no buzzer in the phone I have. That, too, is a case where I’ve ordered some, but they have yet to arrive. Once everything is here, however, I intend to configure the system as it would have operated originally: Incoming telephone calls from outside will ring on the bells, and internal intercom calls (extension-to-extension) buzz the buzzer.
Future Plans
Beyond getting everything set-up as needed for ringing and buzzing, I intend to add a second extension to the system. Because these phones are connected to the KSU through 25-pair cabling, it’s not exactly something you can just run anywhere in the house with ease, and I don’t think I would even if I could. There are two specific locations in the lower level of my home where I want extensions for this little system, and it’ll be easy to add the second one.
As I mentioned earlier, I discovered that I had a complete, vintage 4A speakerphone system in the storage bins for my telephone collection. (If you remember the original Charlie’s Angels television series, you’ve seen one of these in action.) It’s a three-part system that includes a transmitter unit (680A), a loudspeaker (108A), and a power source (85B1). I’d forgotten I had it, but all the pieces are present and accounted for, including the unique “partial Amphenol” connectors required for it to function.
As luck would have it, Seriss makes the necessary missing piece for this to work with my new KSU: A modern day replacement for the Bell System 82A connection block. This block, plus a short M/F jumper cable (25-pair with RJ-21 Amphenol connectors) is all that’s needed to connect it to the 2565 telephone. Score! And I did order one with the KSU board, so soon enough, I’ll get that working. Once it is, I’ll update this post, or write a supplementary one.
In Conclusion
I’m nothing if not an overgrown kid with graying facial hair and a larger allowance, and getting this KSU and setting-up a key system is delightfully free of any actual purpose whatsoever. Well, no purpose beyond the sheer fun of finally being able to play with something I wish I could played with at age 10 or 12. I could be embarrassed by this, but instead, I’m left wanting to find more of these unfulfilled dreams, and make them a reality just for the sake of it. After this project, it’s something I can highly recommend.