Fanfare intercom system wiring type?

[Techminded365]

So, I am moving into a house that was built in the 1900s. The Intercom system is Fanfare, but I don’t know the year. Some Google searching left me without an answer.

What types of cabling does it use? I was pulling out the telephone wire, because I didn’t think we were going to need it. However, if the intercom system uses it, then I might’ve messed up.

I have uploaded some pictures below of the main panel and a room panel.

Any information anyone has would be helpful!

thank you all so much!!!

 

[Red Squirrel]

You'd have to open it to check, telephone wire is very possible. Doorbell wire may also be possible, as I could see it where at some point there would be a door bell then they replaced it with that and used the same wire.

 

[deadlyapp]

Hard to say - if it's one way, they may just have a single pair of wires that connects to a speaker that acts as both speaker and microphone. More likely however that there are two pairs at least (and likely a ground) for both microphone and speaker.

At the end of the day, it's just multiple pairs, so you could use telephone wire and that may have been what they used.

As Squirrel said - I'd unscrew one of the panels and just look.

 

[Techminded365]

Thank you so much Red Squirell and deadlyapp for the reply’s!

I don’t know much about telephone wire but I did take some pics of the inside main panel.

I sincerely appreciate the help!!!

 

[lxskllr]

Wow, vacuum tubes. I'd save the face plates for a kitschy decoration, and just run something modern for the guts.

 

[Captante]

Yeah that thing appears to be more of a "display-item" if you follow me.

😉

If you want a full-house intercom/music system then I suggest looking into replacing that with a modern system many of which are wireless.

It appears the original company is now kaput, but there are quite a few old units floating around for sale on Ebay and the like if you feel like tinkering... getting new parts will be extremely tough if not impossible though I bet.

 

[Techminded365]

It definitely doesn’t work. So, it’s probably not worth the price to fix because it could just brake again bc of age.

i guess I don’t have to worry about ripping out the telephone line then? Lol!

thanks again for the reply’s!

 

[sdifox]

Err rip that thing out completely lol.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Wow that is a relic. Stuff of that era was relatively easy to fix, I'd be tempted to try to fix it just for fun, but overall probably not worth it. That capacitor (I think that's what it is?) is also kinda oddball because it has more than 2 connections and that's most likely the failed part. Tubes can fail after a while too. But yeah for actual usage I would replace it.