Internal Building Communications

This includes the Doorbell, Intercoms and Panic Alarm.

Intercoms

The handsets themselves are all hardwired together so that when any handsets are picked up at the same time users at each end may communicate. This means that without anyone calling anywhere else, a 4 way conversation is possible. When the phone is called, a loud buzz is produces by the speaker in the headset. If someone has the phone off the hook, you can’t call them (this is a good thing because then you can’t deafen the person holding the handset). Don't try and be funny by phoning yourself, those buttons are disabled so nothing will happen!

The phones are situated in 4 strategic locations around the building:

Number	Location
1	Servery
2	Tech Box
3	Back Stage
4	Box Office
5	Spare/Unused

Back stage the intercom can be silenced by a small switch on the side of the unit. Regardless of whether it has been silenced or not, a small LED on the wall above the table will flash.

In the Techbox, the phones can be silenced using the show switch. When the show switch is activated, the LEDs along the front of the Techbox will flash GREEN instead of hearing a buzz.

Panic Alarm

The panic alarm can be activated by one of two switches, 1 situated in the box office and the other is in the servery. When these are activated, alarms are set off in different parts of the building and any available members should proceed front of house to help the panicking FOH staff. In the Techbox, the alarm is a continuous buzzer, unless the show switch is active then the LEDs at the front of the Techbox will flash RED. There is a BLUE bacon that is also activated by the alarm in the office. Additionally, if the box office alarm has been activated, then a buzzer is sounded in the servery.

TO RESET THE ALARM press the ‘reset’ button on top of the black box in the box office (picture to follow)

The alarm system is controlled from the black box in the box office. It is based on 2 relays (one for each trigger) that are on a feedback loop so that when they are triggered, they the self sustaining. The reset switch simply breaks the feedback loop.

Power and Cables

The systems are all powered by a 12V transformer sitting under the tech box desk far end, stage right (under lighting desk). The panic alarm and phones are almost two separate systems that meet in the tech box and use the same cabling to speak to the tech box and other parts of the building. The cabling system is based on bell wire (12 cores) though there is a small section in the servery that uses two small stretches of cat5 (8 cores) (this is because we couldn’t find any bell wire and currently the building has kilometres of cat5)

Cable map

Please note that the cables are of the age that make them brittle buggers and liable to snap at any movement. This also means that they have faded and as such identifying the colours is a pain. When two colours are listed, i.e. White/Blue this denotes White wire with Blue stripes.

Channel	Name	Bell	Cat5	Phone
1-Serv	Servery	Green/White	Green	Black
2-TB	Tech Box	White/Green*	White/Green	D Brown
3-BS	Back Stage	Brown/White	Brown	L Brown
4-BO	Box Office	White/Brown	White/Brown	Purple
5-SP	Spare	Grey/White	Orange	Orange
6	-	-	-	Yellow
7	-	-	-	Peach
8	-	-	-	White/Blue
9	-	-	-	Grey
10	-	-	-	Grey?
Incoming Call	-	-	-	White
Voice	Phone Line	Orange/White	White/Orange	Mint Green
+	+12V	Red/Blue	White/Blue	Red
-	0V	Blue/Purple	Blue	Blue
PANIC	Panic Alarm Trigger	White/Orange	White/Orange#	-

*The White/Green wire between BO and Serv has a break in it somewhere; this has been fixed by using the White/Grey wire over this section.

# This means that it is in the second cat5 cable (the one with the green tape on it)