Navyphone

A Navyphone is a rugged type of telephone made specifically for shipboard applications using short-range circuits. For some time, the Royal Navy called these "loud-speaking telephones", but the word "navyphone" was coming into usage as early as 1902. They considered them as being slightly different to long-range telephones.

Form Factor

Navyphones varied considerably in their physical details, not all of them resembling a conventional telephone. Some resembled intercoms, and some were rather comical in appearance with trumpets or large horns in front or to be clopped over one's ears as though sharing a secret with a sunflower. Most were to be mounted on a bulkhead or other convenient vertical surface.

British Patterns

British navyphones were supplied by the Graham company, and identified like many tools of the Royal Navy: by Pattern numbers. Most were in watertight metal cases with receivers at the back with diaphragms facing the back of the instrument, projecting into trumpets which carried the sound out to the side. The transmitter was placed in front and could be revolved by hand although no clear description is offered of the plane of rotation.

They were most often battery-powered, initially, powered in pairs off six pattern 1453 cells in a pattern 1704 battery box until the Lord Nelson, Bellerophon and later classes in which they were powered by a motor generator.

Navyphones in British Service, 1914
Pattern 1855 Navyphone	upper deck type push-to-talk bell
Pattern 1856 Navyphone	engine room type push-to-talk bell
Pattern 1856A Navyphone	engine room type
Pattern 2108 Navyphone	fire control, control position paired with 2109 push-to-talk no bell
Pattern 2108A Navyphone	fire control	fitted in some cabins in Dreadnought and later ships
Pattern 2108B Navyphone	fire control
Pattern 2109 Navyphone	fire control, gun position paired with 2108 push-to-talk bell
Pattern 2109A Navyphone	fire control	fitted in some cabins in Dreadnought and later ships
Pattern 2109B Navyphone	fire control
Pattern 2140 Navyphone	universal type
Pattern 2140A Navyphone	upper deck type normal use or fire control suitable for generator
Pattern 860 Navyphone	fire control
Pattern 861 Navyphone	fire control
Pattern 862 Navyphone	fire control
Pattern 863 Navyphone	general use
Pattern 541 Navyphone	cabin, an improved type, having a handset	"fitted in recent ships"
Pattern 2461 Navyphone	general use, buzzer call-up	Lion and Orion classes and later
Pattern 2461A Navyphone	with bell contact	Lion and Orion classes and later
Pattern 2462 Navyphone	cabin, buzzer call-up	Lion and Orion classes and later
Pattern 2463 Navyphone	fire control, buzzer call-up	Lion and Orion classes and later
Pattern 2464 Navyphone	fire control, buzzer call-up	Lion and Orion classes and later
Pattern 2465 Navyphone	fire control (transmitter only), buzzer call-up	Lion and Orion classes and later
Pattern 2466 Navyphone	destroyer or exposed positions, buzzer call-up	Lion and Orion classes and later
Pattern 3330 Navyphone	general use, buzzer call-up	Queen Elizabeth class and later
Pattern 3331 Navyphone	cabin, buzzer call-up	Queen Elizabeth class and later
Pattern 3332 Navyphone	fire control, buzzer call-up	Queen Elizabeth class and later
Pattern 3333 Navyphone	fire control, buzzer call-up	Queen Elizabeth class and later
Pattern 3334 Navyphone	fire control (transmitter only), buzzer call-up	Queen Elizabeth class and later

See Also

• Telaupad
• Voicepipe
• Telephone

Bibliography

• Template:BibUKTorpedoDrillBook1914
• Template:BibUKARTS1902