Military Field Phone Telephone Set TA-312/PT and other options

[zeerf]

So I picked up a used set and spool of wire on ebay (still to test and see if they will even work). At first my main idea was to have capability to run a setup of at least 3-5 of these units. (I may continue down this path but price point appears to get higher once you have to add a switchboard.

One option I ran into are these guys http://softbaugh.com/fieldphone/

one of the best manuals I have read (http://softbaugh.com/fieldphone/downloads/FieldPhoneSystemManual_v1_0.pdf) they automatically win this by mentioning zombies...


thinking of this option then add bulk spool of wire and some phones. https://www.softbaugh.biz/?q=FPOK4

Anyway long story short I will be trying both of these options out and keeping my eye out on switchboard deals as I do feel the rugged reliability of the .mil stuff is worth it overall however I did find this option appealing also.

Anyone have any experience with either? I have ran the TA-312s back in my Army days but that was over 15 years ago.
Side note HT's will also be part of the SOI however I like the hard lined options these provide.

[gadget99]

I was a platoon radioman during as a private at my first unit.

The 312 is rock solid.

I have wanted to get some myself.

As for the switchboard. You can always use a block of wood. Pound nails into it partially. Then hook the wires onto the nails. Then use alligator clips to connect the circuits as needed.

Easy stuff with sound powered phones.

[zeerf]

As for the switchboard. You can always use a block of wood. Pound nails into it partially. Then hook the wires onto the nails. Then use alligator clips to connect the circuits as needed.

Great option and thank you!

[JohnyMac]

Cool Z! Thx for posting.

[gadget99]

Hi All,

I just realised that my reply was not as complete as it could be.

For info -

The TA-312 is a sound powered field phone. No batteries or sensitive electronics involved. It has two connectors that hook up to military field wire. Think a positive and negative wire to make it easy to understand. You speak into the handset and the speaking diaphragm vibrates and creates a small electric current that can be listened to by other field phones on the wire.

This tech has been in use since WWI in the army.

This is perfect for static point to point/multipoint  communication. Since the communication takes place over the wire and is sound powered it is very secure and resistant to interference.

The variation of how to employ this tech is wide and varied. I will highlight a few for example purposes.

1. point to point - two phones with one wire run between them.
2. Point to multiple point - Multiple lines running to a central switchboard. The switchboard can be as I noted earlier. Just a block of wood with nails sticking out of it and alligator clips used to connect the circuits as required.
3. An Army favorite for defensive positions - A ring. Basically the line is run around the perimeter and phones are hooked to the line at different points. Thus all of the phones are on the same circuit and can always talk to each other. (This is very easy and fast to set up and recover)

So if you take a bit and think on it. The potential uses are massive. Also it must be noted that the range that these can communicate over is measured in miles as opposed to meters. As long as the line is unbroken and not shorted out you can communicate.

There are many different surplus field phones out there from many different countries. The thing to remember is that the tech in this is so simple that any sound powered phone will be able to communicate with any other sound powered phone no matter the make / model / origin.

The TA-312 is cool because it is small enough to be very portable. So you can run a bunch of lines and carry the phone with you to hook up to the closest wire to communicate.

Now for my recommendation -

If you foresee a need for a rock solid ability to communicate between fixed locations then this is the way to go. Stick with the voice powered field phones. I personally would shy away from the models that have any electronic bell and whistles due to the susceptibility of requiring a power source and the electronics are susceptible.

I hope this helps.

Cheers all......

 

[JohnyMac]

And then there is this

[zeerf]

great to have more options @JohnyMac

and thank you for the additional info @gadget99

Have some stuff on order and going to be testing things out. Will update with more after some time testing.

[NC Scout]

Zombie thread, I know, but a good one that I have a lot of experience with.

Zeerf's suggestion of the SoftBaugh set is a very good one. I met one of the developers of that project at a PatCon in 2015. Very good guy and a solid piece of equipment. One thing I really liked was the ability to send morse code with the buzzer button.

TA-312s are an expensive investment but folks have to understand they fill a specific role: hard wiring static positions. What we would do with them is hard wire hide sites together to keep our electronic signature to a minimum when coordinating several hide sites in an area. The same logic should be applied to setting up observation posts in a retreat.

One thing to know about them is that they are sound powered to around a mile or so. It'll also be pretty poor quality. They use two D cell batteries as signal boosters.