What Works. Equipt Intro #1

How can norstar go cordless? There are several different equipment combinations.

M7410: Out of production. Featured an M7310 style base with a cordless handset having programable buttons for lines and features with hold, rls and Feature. Battery was NiCad. Range rather poor for 900Mhz. If you have one that works they are good but too many sets had problems.

T7406: A slightly upscale M7410. Same handset, same M7310 emulation. Featuring a remote mountable base station which will support up to three handsets. Comes with two batteries and a stand alone charger. Two base stations may be co-located as there are dip switches to change the operating frequencies. Battery NiMh (little to no memory).
Rated to show three CO lines they can be fooled into showing five if port set up first from an M7310. Buttons offset 123 & 567. Range better than M7410 because base station can be mounted for optimal RF coverage. Audio a bit hollow. Quite reliable. Suitable for small office environmnent. Very suseptable to interferance from other RF transmit facillities that may be near by.

ATA2 (analog adapter)/Offshelf Cordless: ATA2 carries most features of KSU for call handling. ATA2 must be set up for two intercom keys and tones 'on'. Tones 'off' for data devices. Advantage of this set up is that any analog cordless system may be used from the Panasonic GigaPhone, Engenius SN920 long range single line cordless, to the four line Mobicel cell system and Engenius. Any other kind will work too. Disadvantage: the user has to learn a few basic key pad moves with the 'link' or 'flash' button, * and dialed digits (ie: link-*-70 for transfer).

Companion (as installed for Canada. USA installations require UTAM auth codes for activation otherwise install the same): A great product. Discontinued, manufacturer supported (limmited) for the next several years (date of article Jan 2003). Requires MICS with 'XC' or expanded software. Companion works only with DNs in the 600 range and XC software accesses these DNs. Once an ICS has been upgraded to XC, Companion base station transmitters may be attached directly to the ICS core unit without expansion modules. Each base station contains two duplex radio transievers known as 'radios'. Each radio supports one hand-held cordless phone; each base station supports two hand held cordless phones. Each base station when mounted individually in a widely seperated manor creates a cell (cell zone). Up to four base stations mounted in close proximity to each other, about 2ft, do a handshake thereby creating a single cell supporting more than two handsets.
There are three models of hand-held phone. The two most common and modern are the 3050 and 3060. The 3050 sports a Capt Kirk flip down mike and a really low power output. The flip down is very prone to breakage. The 3060 has three times the power output of the 3050 and does'nt have a flip down mike. The 3060 has good range and is not easily broken.
Wiring minimum is 24AWG, 3 pair. One talk pair & two power pair for (doubling).
Companion can be powered by local class two power supplies or a centralized unit called the 'Remote Power Interconnect unit' RPI. The RPI will power up to 16 base stations. It works well.
Base stations have external antennas. When used there are issues because the base station stops being full duplex and goes simplex only.
When sighting Companion base stations always keep in mind that if you can't see the area you wish to communicate to if you were looking from the base station, you will likely not get good cordless coverage in that area. So don't mount the units behind steel/cement pillars, low down, in wet areas, high up amoung metal duct and venting. RF signal will bounce and reflect to some degree. RF signal will 'rebuild' - to some degree - after an obstruction. RF signal will penetrate wall material - to some degree - depending what the wall is made of.
Companion in its full capacity works with any PBX/KSU with analog ports. Requires an 'Adjunct' which is a kind of dedicated ICS.

Specta Link: Has two products; voice and IP. Voice product works similar to Companion, there are more service features to fit a wider range of applications. Spectra Link costs a whole lot more.
Further info on Specta Link TBA another FAQ.

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