1980's home intercom system with cassette player and radio for whole-home audio!

In one of the previous houses I lived in we had a whole-home intercom system that was already there when we moved into it in 1989.

The main control unit was in the kitchen and it had an AM/FM radio and cassette player which allowed you to feed the audio from the radio and cassette player to any or all of the other rooms in the house (or, any that had the speaker / microphone units in them, anyway).

For 1989 this was pretty awesome technology, let me tell you. It sure beat having to carry a radio or boombox from room to room.

We liked the intercom system so much that we got one installed in our next (newly-built) home two years later, but this one only had the radio and lacked the cassette player (now that I think about it, I wonder if they made one with a CD player option?).

These days I assume it's a piece of cake to hook an MP3 player up to a modern intercom system...

 

The house my parents had was built in the mid 60s and had a whole house intercom. But it did not have a cassette player. However it did have an input jack - RCA jack. So when no one was home I sometimes plugged in my turntable and cranked it up.

I should also have mentioned that the intercom had a built in AM / FM tuner.

 

I think the texting and other wireless options have replaced intercom systems. I haven't seen one in many, many years.

 

Oh man, texting someone else's cell phone in the house... I guess that makes sense but it seems a lot quicker to just press a button and talk.

 

You just need to look at houses built in the 60s and 70s in what were higher end neighborhoods at the time. Most will have an intercom.

 

Our old house was the same, intercom with tape player and FM radio in all rooms, I played "Imagine" and it spooked a guest, lol lol....

 

You can call someone's cell phone in the house and you are accomplishing the same thing as an innercom without having to get up from a resting position. Sure it's way lazy but so is using an innercom.

 

That assumes that both you and the other person have cell phones and have them with you.

 

That's because you accidentally put on a Yoko album!

 

I just bought a house that was built in 1890 and hasn't been touched since the sixties. The lady that sold it is 96, moved in in the 40's. There is a bunch of weird old stuff but that doesn't mean it works. Likewise for a 40 to 50 year old innercom.

I think the closest thing we have today would be a baby monitor. Certainly things like Sonos have come along to get music to speakers in multiple rooms.

 

Not much of an assumption in this day and age.

 

Some people really are addicted to those damned things.

 

We liked the intercom system so much that we got one installed in our next (newly-built) home two years later, but this one only had the radio and lacked the cassette player (now that I think about it, I wonder if they made one with a CD player option?).

They did. My In-Laws had a CD/AM-FM/Intercom in their house.
You can still buy one: Amazon.com: Master Player Station VSCDVDB System One Mini Select Call Intercom: Electronics »

 

I was given an old intercom once that I used in my garage. I put a 4" Radio Shack enclosed speaker in the kitchen. I used to be in the garage a lot working on cars or just hanging out with friends.

I also had a phone out there too. But, my wife (at the time) and I had a system where as, I would let the phone ring and she would answer it. If it was someone calling for me, she would have them call back and I'd know to answer it. The intercom was really nice for her and I to be able to talk while I was out there. The garage was heated so it was a man cave too.

I kept that unit for a long time through the moves I've made but I eventually pitched it out. It was a tube unit so I wish now I would have held onto it. It also had a tuner built in. Gold metal front. Pretty nice looking for something so old.

 

I remember my family's home in Canarsie had a pretty ancient intercom. I'm pretty sure I never saw it actually working.

 

This was an "Value Added" sales inducement for new home sales in the 60's along with "Gold Medallion" homes meaning the electric company gave a spiff to the builder to exclude natural gas (boo) I am in one of those.

 

By the 80's they were just a status symbol thing for upper-class families.

 

My in-laws had one (NuTone brand) in their house. AM-FM/Cassette, and a phono (ceramic) input. Now THAT was high-end!!

 

My ex-in-laws had one in their house built in 1972, it was the thing to have back then. Did they use it? Hardly ever...

 

We used ours fairly often- more for the intercoms feature than the radio/cassette player feature (though sometimes we did decide to play a radio station throughout the house).

 

Our house in the 70s had a 'Talk-a-Radio' intercom system. Tube based with an AM/FM radio.

It was pretty cool back in the day.

 

One of the homes I grew up in was built in the early 1960s and had a whole-house radio-intercom system, with the "base unit" located in the kitchen. When I was about 10, I used to switch the unit on the front porch to "talk," and then go sit in the kitchen and eavesdrop on my older brother and his girlfriend while they were canoodling on the porch. Good times, good times...

 

My wife texts me when I'm downstairs in my office all the time. Don't have an intercom so it's definately more efficient.

And my wife is a fassssssst texter.

 

I had forgotten that a lot of the old whole house intercoms were tube units. The one in my parents house was since I remember it took a minute or so to warm up after turning it on.

The tuner for the radio was also a dial.......none of these digital tuners.

 

This is a pic the main unit that was in the house I grew up in. My Dad built the house in 1959. It had 4 split levels. In hindsight. with 8 kids, it made sense. I was always plugging things into that phono input.
Nutone Intercom