Topcat's Budget Telephone System- Panasonic KX-TA624 Conquest

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by Topcat

It was one of the first things I tried long before I dug this POTS system out of the attic. After a few calls on it, the quality made me not pursue it any further.

Odd. I never noticed any call quality issues. Maybe I'm lucky for once?

Originally Posted by Topcat

No worries.....we all know your bark is a lot worse than your bite!

That's the kind of day I've had... but that's for another thread. Or a PM.

[Topcat]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

That's the kind of day I've had... but that's for another thread. Or a PM.

...or email, whichever you prefer...

I was up in the attic and found a spool with probably 200ft of cat5 cable on it...

Originally Posted by Curious.George

Do yourself as favor and make a crib-sheet regarding how to program various features. Most of these systems (esp older ones) are incredibly cryptic about what to do and how to do it -- in addition to knowing the proper lingo ("Camp ON", "Call Group Pickup", "Line Queuing", DID, DLA, "Forced Line Disconnect", "Tandem Calling", etc.)

Yea, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, programming this thing is a bit complicated....and the manual may as well be written in japanese.... The basic stuff wasn't too bad....but setting up ring groups and other more advance settings seems a bit more obscure to find clear directions for.... For example, an incoming call rings every extension....which right now is fine....but down the road, I'd like it to only ring at a couple extensions and the rest remain silent. Turning the ringers off isn't an option, since I'd like them to ring for the intercom (communication between my shop & house)....but once I figure it all out, some layman's cribnotes are a definite!

[Curious.George]

Originally Posted by Topcat

Yea, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, programming this thing is a bit complicated....and the manual may as well be written in japanese....

The docs I found for my PBX (Meisei MK440CT) were sparse (mainly "feature lists" published by PBX vendors). I ended up disassembling the code in the microprocessor to figure out what the commands were and their formats, etc. WAY too much work!

I think a newer "all digital" PBX might be easier to comprehend as mine had hard-wired signal paths (digitally controlled analog) that imposed constraints on what could and couldn't be done -- so (without schematics), a lot of effort went into understanding why THIS worked but not THAT...

Many alarm systems are equally cryptic. Stupid when you consider how easy it is to add a serial port (or, BT interface!).

The basic stuff wasn't too bad....but setting up ring groups and other more advance settings seems a bit more obscure to find clear directions for.... For example, an incoming call rings every extension....which right now is fine....but down the road, I'd like it to only ring at a couple extensions and the rest remain silent.

I'm developing a "digital attendant" that interacts with callers to determine if I "need" to be contacted. E.g., because the machine can "listen in" on any conversation, it can learn various callers' speech characteristics -- so, can identify them when they call at a future time. Couple this with rules regarding who/what/when I am willing to be "bothered" and I get the advantage of privacy with "ring through" based on genuine "need" (e.g., if my other half phones, I want the phone to ring regardless of time of day or where I might be at the time. OTOH, if a friend/colleague calls at an inopportune time, just "take a message" -- and don't let the phone ring!).

Turning the ringers off isn't an option, since I'd like them to ring for the intercom (communication between my shop & house)....but once I figure it all out, some layman's cribnotes are a definite!

I've taken to doing this for every piece of kit that I have to "set up". As I don't expect to be doing that again any time soon, I'm reasonably sure that I will remember some (many?) details that will eat my lunch at that future date!

(E.g., how to bypass the registration screens on various phones, ebook readers, etc. I've got an iPhone that I'll have to sort that out for, RSN)

[Topcat]

What a crappy, cold, rainy & drab fall day.....so I wasted it snaking the shittiest cable of all through the wall from my office to the wire closet.....

The crappy part over, and phone working.



Those awesome 3 monitors, just to make someone get all excited....



Wall jack.....install clean or don't install at all.



Now for the workroom. This jack originally was 2x RJ45 connectors with cat5e to each. I 'borrowed' one of the cat5e lines and pulled the RJ45 jack and replaced it with an RJ11 (the wall plate works with either)....and of course pulled the other end in the wiring closet from the LAN switch and patched it into the telco switchboard.



I wired this back in 2010 when I finished out this room. At some point, I may run an additional/dedicated telco wire, but for now this was the easy way. There's already 4 LAN connections in this room, plus the wifi.....one of the LAN drops could be spared.



...and done with this for today!



So far so good!

[Topcat]

Some research revealed that there's a Panasonic cordless phoine compatible with this system...I found a used one for 22 bucks.....Ni Cad battery won't hold a charge....but that's fixable.

[Topcat]

Just a FWIW, this has been in operation since the creation of the thread.....but I did finally get motivated to clean up the rats nest of wires and tidy everything up.

Shelves.... That TVS-50 voice system is basically a voicemail system....that I never could seem to get programmed right....so I said fruck it, I'll use the one built into the cellular line.

...but atleast the UPS isn't sitting on top of a junk PC case because the wires weren't long enough!



Brains for the cordless extension.



PBX all tidied up.



Even inside this building, that box always has 3 of 4 bars. Never had an issue with it.



I didn't show the before pics....out of embarrassment.... Not so bad now.





It was never all that bad inside the cabinet....it's just packed a little tighter with telephone connections in it now.



...and that's that!

[CapLeaker]

the Nortel stuff I have to play with once in a while is older and bigger. I still do have a Nortel NT5B01 and phones kicking around here. In those there are no coin cell batteries. They have Panasonic 1.5F supercaps in there.
The new Avaya stuff is best programmed via software / laptop and so far haven't had much problems with it, besides programming bugs.
The old Nortel gear mostly breaks because there is something wrong with the power supply. Easy fixes.