🚀 go-pugleaf

>> >> In article <telecom15.460.10@massis.lcs.mit.edu>, sewilco@fieldday.mn.org
>> >> (Scot E. Wilcoxon) wrote:
>> >> > sound card.  From the description it seems to be an RS-232 controlled
>> >> > phone circuit which uses a sound card instead of a handset.

I have a need to put audio from a radio on to a phone line, and this
little gizmo does the trick. It's called "Voice Mail for the PC" and it's
made by Reveal. Cost me $54.99 at CompUSA.

It's a little overkill for my application, as it can dial the phone and (I
think) store messages. For someone who wants a voice mail solution for
their PC, it seems like a pretty cool gadget as well. But it's still a
good price in the whole scheme of even my small project.

It's a small box with a DB25 connector, two phone jacks, two miniature
stereo jacks, and two wires with miniature stereo plugs. It comes with a
microphone and a DB9-DB25 adapter.

You plug the DB9/DB25 into a serial port (not your modem port), and
connect your phone and TELCO connection (or modem and TELCO connection, or
phone and modem) to the phone jacks on it, and the audio connections to
your sound card. They supply a suite of apps that basically give you voice
mail capability, with messages stored on your hard disk.

Since I didn't need all that functionality, I just played with it without
installing their SW. Turns out that if I plug the "sound in" miniature
plug into my radio, connect the phone jacks to the phone side of my DSVD
modem, then activate the Windows "Terminal" program, the thing will play
audio into my DSVD modem just like I want. The Terminal program asserts
RTS (I think), which gets the box to pick up the phone (or my DSVD modem's
phone connection) and play the audio into it.

The effect of this is (on my project) that I can now send data across my
DSVD modem which instructs the receiving app to assert RTS on the other
comm port, picking up the phone and playing the audio. When one side of
the DSVD connection picks up the phone, the other side gives a fake ring
(through the modem speaker), instructing the him to pick up the phone for
a voice conversation. The other end will then hear the radio when he picks
up.

Since the box is made for an amplified SoundBlaster card, I have to crank
the radio up pretty loud, which is not a problem.

The box could be used in the same way for getting audio from the phone
line on to an 8-ohm subminiature plug/jack, but the level is really low
because they intend for you to plug it into a SoundBlaster card, which (I
think) takes a very low level for input. I'm either going to buy another
box and an amplified speaker, or just buy a speakerphone for that
application.

Anyway, thanks, Scot, for the info. Your recommendation made me look like
a hero here at work....

- Mark Malson
  markm@xetron.com