duplicating phone and ring voltage

I know, and since there are only 1000 possible codes, the odds are even that I will find it by the time I'm half way through.

No I couldn't. I had to get the answers that people provided, and I still have to build or buy a line voltage/ring voltage device. What's eating you, Smitty?

I don't know if it works that way. It's a lot more secure if you have to start off with a correct code.

The previous one came from E-bay. This one comes from the wife of a good friend who had it since it was new.

(The one I bought from ebay had exactly the same problem my old one has. It would answer the phone and play the message, but it wouldn't beep or start recording the message. I doubt if it was necessary to steal it since it was broken. At the same time, testing this feature requires more setup than testing recording and playing the incoming or outgoing messages, so I don't think the seller knew it was broken. He didn't claim that it worked. But by buying this one, it was a lot easier to ask my friend not to get rid of his wife's machine. Turns out she had stopped using it and he sent it to me.)

Isn't that precious.

Yeah, that's it. With the time I save not finding this code (while watching tv), I'll be able to stop terrorists. (Also while watching tv?)

Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.

Wow. Over my limit, I think.

Still a lot.

They might ship. I'll check. Thanks a lot.

Sounds reasonable. I had my old machine apart twice, and my friend's wife's machine apart once, to change the tape mechanism drive belts, and I don't think I saw the number for either, but I'll look harder this time. I think I might have seen both sides of the mechanism, but maybe not since I didn't want to un"plug" the microphone from the top half of the case, and there were speaker wires too and maybe button wires.. Thanks.

It made it a lot easier to ask about my friend's machine, since I had fixed it once, and she used it for a few years after that. I don't think she bought her replacement. IIRC it was included with a new job she had.

Hey everyone!

About the cheapest way to generate a ring-voltage problem...

I've seen several "call directors", a box that picks up a ringing line, listens, determines if it's an incoming fax or modem, then sends the signal to the corresponding RJ-11 jack where the actual device is plugged in.

Wouldn't one of these have to generate a ring voltage to get the fax or modem to go off-hook?

Anyone have a schematic for one of these? It might be a rather simple thing to modify one of these for the OP's purpose.

Comments?

Stan.

Hmmm, Digitally there is distinct ring service from Telco. Corresponding device responds when phone rings. Even single line can have different multitple numbers, etc. Talk to Telco rep. and express your service needs.

Here's a simple inverter-

But to get more control over frequency you may need a more complex circuit using an astable multivibrator or timer IC like a 555.

Dave

You've never heard of Murphy's Law, I guess?

Jonesy

Of all the advice I;ve see so far, the one that makes the most sense was the person questioning why you need to know the old remote access code to change it. The ones that I've had were set on the base unit and you could do it without knowing the old code.

No way in hell I'd spend hours rigging crap to try to salvage a 20 year old answering machine when you can buy a new one for $20

I've been rather exempt from Murphy's law, except on big things.

On little things like this, I actually think the "odds" are much better than even I'll find it before I'm half-way through. :)

Found this in google for a Code-a-Phone model 2600.

"Not sure of the model number, but it sounds familiar. If it is the little black one with gold trim and the digital outgoing message, then the remote code is determinded by two things; a sticker on the bottom with a single digit (ie '7') and a switch with two numbers. ('3' or '9') The sticker determines the first digit, the switch selects the second digit. This may be true for yours, look on the bottom for a sticker with a single number; then look for the switch, it may be hidden."

On Tue, 28 Mar 2006 18:34:54 -0500, mm put finger to keyboard and composed:

So you have another identical unit? Is it an analogue type, ie does it use microcassettes rather than flash memory? If so, then there may be a small 8-pin serial EEPROM that stores the code and speed dial numbers (?), in which case you could swap the chip between the two machines. You could also read the chips using a device programmer and compare the contents, or you could simply duplicate a working chip.

- Franc Zabkar

--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

**

Thank you. A lot. We're cool. It takes a big man to say more than just "sorry", as you have done.

After I read this far, I wanted this paragraph to come after we were cool:

**I don't want to spend the time, but I want the result. There are features that this machine has that no other one has. (that I have found and I've looked a lot). I'm hoping this will last me another 20 years**, but even if it only lasts 5 years, it will be well worth it. It's not like I don't spend too much time watching tv as it is. I can do this while I watch tv.

I once did something else like this that was repetitive, and I was satisfied, but I haven't been able to remember what it was.

**The first one lasted almost 20 and I'm going to put a good surge suppressor in front of this one (hope that makes a difference.)

I'd go into the details of the features this has that I want, but it would take a long time and is probably boring to most people.

Posted and mailed too because it's been days and maybe no one is reading this thread anymore.

Thanks to all of you for the help.

Thanks a lot, this could be very helpful. I don't have the machine in front of me right now, but I will look for these things.

Microcassettes.

Not important, but it doesn't have a phone attached. That is one of the reasons my friend doesn't use it anymore.

I will look for the EEPROM.

*simply* duplicate? I don't think I can do that. ;-) But the rest of it sounds possible. Thanks a lot.

I'm interested in hearing what those featires are, anyone who is bored the list skip the posting.

On Tue, 04 Apr 2006 20:38:18 -0400, snipped-for-privacy@to.group wrote:

I'm sorry I let so many days go by. I would email you two if you had email addresses.

Primarily, after it starts either playing the outgoing or recording the incoming message, it doesn't stop when I pick up the phone. This is great when I'm in bed and don't have a pen and paper to make notes, or I'm too sleepy. People leave their name and phone number, and the machine takes it down for me. They also might say when I'm supposed where.

At that point, I might say "Please pause for 7 seconds so that the machine will hang up." and if they understand and are sufficiently quiet, as at least my regular friends are, the machine senses the quiet, beeps and hangs up. Then we can talk longer with no recording.

Sometimes I don't say that, and I let the machine record up to the length of the tape. Even with friends, it helps me to review these tapes to rehear the conversation, and I can get things that I missed the first time. I don't save these tapes, and there would be nothing embarrassing even if I, say, died before I had a chance to record over them.

On a couple occasions, I have been quite burdened by the law in Maryland and some other states that prevents recording phone conversations. (remember Linda Tripp) But if they called and the machine said leave a message, I think even if I got on later, that law woudln't be applicable. In the most serious case, my mother's stock broker was lying to my mother about me and to me about my mother, and to both of us about what she was doing with the account. My mother was 85 years old and fully competent, but I warn you that vultures are more likely to steal from old people, even when they are competent. She, the stock broker, churned my mothers account, causing her to pay income taxes on realized capital gains, when my mother wasn't having any high medical bills or other new expenses and there was no need to buy or sell anything at all. My mother knew that she could refrain from trading until she died, and then the stocks all got a new base value without anyone in the family paying capital gains taxes on the increase, some of it since my father died in 1955. That's the law. But the stock broker worked it out, lied and said my mother had approved it over the phone, so that my mother paid taxes on 40 years of increase in value including inflation, at least 20,000 dollars more in taxes just so the broker could make 5000 dollars. (Name of the broker sent via email on request, probably the largest local broker in Maryland.)

When you are old, set up your account to require written authorization. Even though you may be fully competent, the broker will rely on your age to make a tribunal (usually arbitration) think that maybe you're not so compentent as you look, and maybe you did approve it, even when you hadn't. When you're as old as my mother, the broker will think, she may be dead by the time this goes to arbitration, and indeed my mother was.

It's like one year in the dorm. Every night I slept soundly with my door open, don't remmeber why. But the one night in the whole year that I got drunk was the night someone came in and took my wallet. He could have done it any night, but I seemed vulnerable drunk. So too do old people seem vulnerable, even when they may be no more vulnerable than anyone. But more people attack them, so it is self-fulfilling.

When challenged, the stock broker relies on the fact that they say that they do not give TAX advice. This sounds like they don't give tax advice on complicated tax matters, but the example I gave above is not complicated at all, it's known to every broker, they know they would not be working in the client's interest, and some of them do it anyhow. Because they want the commissions.

Another smaller matter, disssimilar from this one and unrelated to it, is pending now, where I would like to record what is said.

Also, I like double cassette machines. So nothing they sell now is what I really like. With double cassette, it is easy to have several outgoing messages and to change them in a couple seconds, by changing the tape. Easy to save incoming messages that need to be saved.

I like my old machine's logic. It was the top of the line and everythign that coudl be done in person could be done remotely, including changing the outgoing message, and it allowed for interrupting the outgoing message with the pass number when I wanted to play my message.

Also, I like the logic of this machine and have trouble with others, including the one I'm using now, which was the best of the bunch. Wwith my old machine, I used to be able to play the incoming messages as often as I wanted, in a row, then rewind or not, depending on whether I want to keep it or not. With the machine I was forced to use, I press Play Recent and it rewinds and plays the messages since the last time. But it won't do that a second time. I can press Play All once too, but if after that, I rewind to the start and press either Play, it won't play anything. I have to fast forward a bit to what it considers the middle of the tape, and then press Play and then it will play. This problem occurs other places in the tape too iirc under certain circumstances. For a while I thought the machine was broken. The manual studiously avoids saying anything about these situations and now I'm sure the machine isn't broken. A Panasonic Easa-Phone

And this is just what I remember. I haven't used the machine for more than two years so there might be good features I've forgotten. There haven't been any good features on any of the 10 machines I bought since then, except the date and time stamp might be. But since I'm home every night or call in once or twice a day for messages, and can call in cheaply from out of town** when I'm away, no message has ever been so old that I've really needed the date and time. In fact it annoys me to have to spend the time listening to it before every message.

Also most new ones let you skip to the start of the next message, and delete messages in the middle. This is good, but the absence of these things never bothered me and certanly not as much as the absense of the things that I do miss.

**I rarely do that. When I'm away, I stop thinking about life back here, except I woudl call once a week.

I'm a terrible person to buy presents for. Especially mechanical and electronic ones. I know what I like, and that's often all that I like. I don't need a lot of things, but what I have has to be just so.

When I want to fix something, I have almost endless patience. I've done one or two things with 100 possibilities -- I forget what they are now -- and 1000 possibilities is only ten times as many. It doesn't have to be done tomorrow, but when I'm done, that will be the time.

After all this, I hate to tell you this, but I should. There was no code on the bottom, but my friend sent me more stuff, including the spare rubber belts I had bought but not used, and not the manual, but the QUIK summary of controls, and on that his wife or he had long ago written the code!!! And there is a zero in the code which means my plan to do all non-zero codes would mean I would have done the first

900 combinations without finding it. It would have been in the last 100. So it woudl have taken twice as long as my estimate.

But I still benefitted greatly from the info about phone voltages and ringing voltages. Phones were one of my first interests** and I've wanted to know this stuff for years, before the two projects I asked about ever existed. Besides the one remaining, there will be others and this helps a lot to fill the big hole in my knowledge. It's useful and satifying even when I"m not using it.

**In college in chicago, I even went to the Illinois Institute of Technology just to read about phones. They only had one book that represented my then sub-interest, and I couldn't check it out because I didn't go to school there, but I spent hours reading it at their library.

A big thanks, again, to all of you.

I just found an old ad for Code-a-phone answering machines. they were made by the Conrac company.

They might be able to tell you what company took over that particular division of the business.