Connect two KX-TA624 units together 1

[Jerad]

Hello,

I'm a volunteer with a first response unit that has been given the task to tie two Panasonic KX-TA624 units together.

There are two "mobile command posts" that each has it's own 624 phone system. Each has available CO and extension ports.

Is there a way to tie the two together so that an extension in truck 1 could call an extension in truck 2?

I tried running a phone cord from a free extension port in truck 1 to a free CO port in truck 2 and it really didn't work very well.

Thanks!

 

[skip555]

how many extensions ?

one thing that comes to mind is to look on ebay for a used 1232 anlog you could probably then turn around and sell the used 624 for the same or equall

you might also try contacting some re sellers in the secondary market and see what kind of trade up they could work with you tword the digital 1232 if the analog didnt provide enough extesnions.

 

[Jerad]

Each truck has the extension card for more extensions, so each truck has about 10 free extension ports. Each truck also have 3 or more free CO ports.

Because these trucks sometimes operate independently, each truck has to have it's own phone system. They are connected to tellular units for incoming/outgoing calls, plus intercom calls between stations.

It's when the two truck show up at the same emergency scene that I'd like for them to be able to talk to each other.

Any ideas?

 

[skip555]

I missed the part about it being two trucks in my first post

Still I dont think you will find a satisfactory way to link the two 624's

how about taking the 624 out of one truck and replacing it with a 1232 if you use the 1232D anolaog you could get 12 lines 32 extesnions
if you you use the 1232 digital you could go to 24 lines 64 extensions or 128 extesnsions if you use the xdp

wire the truck with the 624 so all extesnsions and co lines are on a 66 block with a amp connection you could then disconnect the 624 from that truck plug a 25 pair cable with a amped end on it and run it to the truck with the 1232 running everything thruogh one system while they where working together.

when they needed to seperate you could unplug from the 1232 and plug the 624 back in leaving both trucks with their own independent system

if you could get by with the analog 1232d you could probably buy one on ebay for about what you could sell the extra 624 for

 

[mrpeabody]

It should be possible to link the 2 A624's together. We have done it with other phone systems. What happened when you tried it? You said it "didn't work very well." Why not? Perhaps the ring generator does not produce enough voltage for the other system's CO line? Did you try turning on "paralleled telephone connection" for the station ports? I believe that program will "up" the ring and battery voltages.

Once you get it working, you can then instruct the users to press the CO button that is designated for the other truck. They will then recieve an intercom tone, and dial the extension number for a phone in the other truck. Or you can put one or two CO's by themselves into a trunk group and tell the users to dial the trunk group access code, then the extension number (ex: 9101, 9102, etc.). This simulates 4 digit extension numbers for the "other" truck, instead of having 2 sets of the same 3 digit extension numbers.

 

[Jerad]

Mrpeabody, thank you very much for replying. Your comments have given me hope that there's a way to reach my goal.

Just a quick recap:

We ran a phone line from "Truck 1" to "Truck 2." We plugged the phone line into a free extension port (ext 107) in "Truck 1" and plugged the other end of the cord into a free CO port (CO 4) in "Truck 2."

The problem seemed to be when "Truck 1" would receive an incoming phone call on one of their other CO lines. When the incoming call came in, our CO line 4 would also ring. We thought somone from "Truck 1" was calling us and would answer the phone and of course it wasn't for us. In retropsect this makes sense - incoming calls ring all extensions and we were plugged into extension 107 in their truck.

So I need to figure out a way to connect the phone systems that meets the following criteria:

1) The ability to call extensions in the other truck.
2) Incoming calls into one truck do not ring in the other truck.

I do not understand the "trunk group" concept yet, but I'm reading the manual trying to figure it out. I really like the idea of using 4 digit codes to mask the fact we have the exact same extension numbers in each command post.

If I plugged the phone cord into a free CO port in each truck, programmed "trunk groups" in each phone system, should that work?

Thanks again to everyone that's posted so far. I greatly appreciate it!

 

[mrpeabody]

Re: CO line 4 ringing in the wrong truck
Go into program 408 and turn off ringing for the "inter-truck" extension(s). In your example, extension 107.

Re: Trunk groups
Go into program 419 and set all regular CO lines to disable, but leave the inter-truck line enabled. This will cause the other lines to never be selected when hitting 9.

Remember, you need to connect the Line 4 and Extension 107 from both trucks to the other truck, to allow the system to work the same from either direction: Connect truck1 ext.107 to truck2 CO4, connect truck2 ext.107 to truck1 CO4.

Also, consider labeling the button for CO4 as "Other Truck" as an alternative to the dial 9+ext number.

Using the system:
Using these methods, the system would operate the same in both directions. You would tell the users that the button for CO4 is the other truck, no matter which truck they were in. Don't even tell them about x107. Press CO4, you get an intercom tone (from the other truck), then dial an extension in the other truck.

 

[Jerad]

Thank you very, very much for your assistance and advice. I'm going to give it a try and see what happens!

 

[Jerad]

mrpeabody,

Your assistance has been most helpful! During some recent testing, we were able to configure the two phone systems to talk to each other using the ideas and concepts you proposed here.

The next thing we would like to accomplish is to impliment your idea to create a new hunt group that consists of just the CO we use to connect to the other command post.

I can't seem to locate this programming option in the documentation. I think I saw that 7 is already taken, along with the default 9. Having someone dial 8101 to reach ext 101 in the "other" truck works a lot better for the types of users I'll be supporting than, "Make sure you press CO 6 and then the extension number."

THANKS AGAIN!

 

[mrpeabody]

The program is 404. The default is that each trunk is in its own group (CO1= grp 1, CO2= grp 2, etc.) The trunk groups hunt to each other in ascending order (example assuming that the lines are in the default setting: if CO1 is busy and you press intercom-81 it will hunt to the line in group 2, which is line 2).

In addition, the line group access codes are not 4 digits like "8101", they are from 81 to 86 which correspond to groups 1 through 6. FYI: Pressing 9 to place a call is EXACTLY the same as pressing 81.