Thinking Back.

[Lenp]

I recently saw a construction article to build a headset communications system using several headsets. The design used control boxes for each headset station with amplifier IC'S batteries and a small handful of parts. They were connected by 3 wire cables and XLR connectors. A pretty elaborate system in all.

I remember years ago for portable or field use we grabbed a bunch of 52A telephone headsets, a roll of wire a 6 volt battery and it worked for miles. If you added more headsets you just added a battery to boost the volume. Everytiing was wired in series.

For a fixed installation like in a theater, there was a simple DC power supply with a series inductor in the output circuit and all the headsets were in parallel.

Right, the carbon transmitters were telephone quality and the audio response wasn't 20 to 20 but hey, we just talked on them!

It's amazing how far we've progressed!

[ShopRat]

Those headset systems sound like what we had in a community theater (repurposed church building) years ago. It had permanent wiring to strategic outlets (1/4" phone jacks with integral switch - plug in your headset to open the switch and put it "in circuit"). I thought they were all wired in series. The lighting booth had a spot for a 6V lantern battery, but someone had upgraded to a wall wart and a huge capacitor to source the system. We techies could chatter away like a big party line and everyone could hear everyone else. The biggest problem was the stage manager's position, where I had my headset ripped off more then once by somebody running between me and the wall jack . Then we "upgraded" to cordless headsets, only one person transmitting at a time. Good times!

Dale