Telephone Conpany in a Box

Allen Nelson

Member
Join Date
Apr 2002
Location
West Chester, PA
Posts
1,368
Every so often we ship a system with a modem, so we can do remote suport. When it comes time to test the modem, before we ship, there is choas and confusion trying to find two analog direct out lines (The office has a PBX system, and while it's sometimes possilbe to go out through those, it adds an extra layer in trying to troubleshoot a system). Often we wind up having to beg one off of IT (with upsets them) and/or unplug a FAX machine (which upsets Admin).

What I would like to find is a simple box with two phone jacks. You would plug a modem (or phone) into each jack. The box woould generate a dialtone when on ATDT/handset pickup, after some number of tones/pulses(>7), it would try to "ring" the other line (or generate a busy signal if the other line is not hung up.

If the other line picks up after a "ring", it would connect the two lines.

Has anyone heard of such a thing? A Google search on "Modem Tester" found noise testers and modem analyzers. "Telephone Tester" produced similar results (although one circuit diagram for a more manual version of this - no "busy" signal though)

If nothing like this exists, how 'bout one of you EE student lurkers build one for your senior project, and then market it? I can see a use for it, not just in Automation, but in department stores to allow customers to check out sound quality of new phones (I know - everyone's going cellular these days.)
 
half the problem

Allen,

This page http://www.howstuffworks.com/telephone3.htm can tell you how to use two phones as a intercom, sort of what you want to do. If you can figure out how to generate the dialtone to get the modem to dial and a way to get the other modem to answer you've got it. It has some links on how to make the lines ring, which would get the modem to answer.
 
Thanks Bernie - those are what I'm looking for - just didn't know what to call it.

They seem to range from about $75 to $250 USD - which is about what I was expecting. Anyone have any experience with any of them (good, bad, drop dead), especially with PLCs?
 

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