Telephone Systems primarily control calls to and from the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Intercoms, on the other hand, are concerned about calls among internal stations within a system. Nevertheless, PBX extensions or Interphone telephones may make intercom calls to each other. 

Doorphones, a special type of outdoor intercom station, make intercom calls to all extension phones in a home or office. Tropical Telecom Off-White, Pewter and Antique Bronze doorphones are shown above. Bright Brass is shown in a picture below.

Intercom Stations can make calls to all the extension phones or can be called individually by the phones. They have features like Privacy/Hands-Free selection.

About Tropical Telecom Doorphones
Tropical Telecom doorphones ship complete and ready to operate. Loudspeaker, pushbutton, mic, night light, electronics and faceplate are factory assembled and tested.

The speaker cone is Mylar for weather and insect resistance. Faceplate, backplate and support hardware are aluminum anodized. Faceplate screws are custom made of aluminum alloy to prevent electro-galvanic corrosion. The pushbutton is stainless steel and seals with an “O” Ring.


The printed circuit board is conformal coated to military specifications. A foam gasket closes any gaps between the back box and doorphone. In the tropics, we learn how to protect products from the environment!

Tropical Telecom doorphones flush mount in a single gang electrical j-box. In new installations, run a single CAT5 cable from the doorphone to the PBX or Interphone control box. Shielded wiring is not necessary. An RJ-45 jack and a 110 punch-down block make life easier for installers.

A minimum of one pair of wires is needed. Therefore, doorphones also work with existing wiring… In a pinch even old doorbell wiring may work.  Note that unlike most other brands of door intercom stations, TropTel doorphones are sophisticated units with on-board bi-directional audio amplification. A volume selector lets the  installer set hi-lo loudspeaker voice levels.

Power for the doorphone comes from the PBX or Interphone system, just like an extension phone. So, no AC power is needed at the doorphone site. If you install the doorphone with a CAT5 cable the second pair of the CAT5 automatically delivers DC power to light a small green LED night light on the front panel.

All Tropical Telecom systems enable remote control of electrical doorstrikes and gates. Users control the doorstrike over any of the system telephones. A small control box (4020A) wires to screw terminals on the doorphone. The contacts are commanded over the CAT5. That means they do not need additional wiring back to the PBX or interphone box.

To make the systems easy to use, Intercom and Doorphone calls ring the house phones with a different cadence than regular telephone calls.



Faceplate Colors
The letter suffix of a TropTel doorphone model indicates its faceplate color.
The five finishes available are:
                                           A. Bright Brass
                                           B. Antique Brushed Bronze
                                           C. Dark Oiled Bronze
                                           D. Off-White Powder Coat.
                                           E. Pewter Grey

For example, a 4012D has an off-white faceplate. Colors of actual faceplates may vary slightly from those shown on this website because of computer screen characteristics.

Two Series of Doorphones
Tropical Telecom has two series of doorphones that are physically the same but
have slightly different electronic characteristics. The differences are for compatibility with different brands and models of telecom products.