Caller ID (USA) -- Was: is there a way to

Sep 16, 2022 Last reply: 3 years ago 3 Replies
C

Philosophical discussions about Caller ID aside...



Since my Davis weather station gave up the ghost, my Pi 4 is lonely and needs a new purpose in life.



I have seen suggestions online that it is possible to implement a (USA land-line) Caller ID system on a Pi using little more than a USB FAX modem and some programming skill. One article I saw said a DTMF decoder needed to be somewhere in the hardware mix. I have not however seen evidence of any practical, or even working prototypes.



I want to capture date, time, caller's number, caller's name into a tab-delimit file, then, if possible, wake my HDMI monitor and display the result. I realize the Caller ID info is usually 100% spoofed, but still may have some value.



Python is my Kryptonite, but I can modify someone else's code. I'm old enough to remember when BASIC was cool.


Vote
Twitter Facebook LinkedIn
D

formatting link
I've only used it on UK landlines but it does support USA phone systems.

Dave

Vote
Twitter Facebook LinkedIn
C

That looks to be EXACTLY what I'm looking for. Thanks. I'm about to order a StarTech USB FAX modem at Amazon.

Vote
Twitter Facebook LinkedIn
C

Success! It took a little skull percussion at first, but I did get ncid up and running on my Pi 4. There's still a lot I need to learn as time permits. Here is what I have learned so far:

The StarTech USB FAX modem was a good choice. There are a metric buttload of no-name USB modems listed on Amazon. There is no way I could see which ones were compatible with ncid, but the StarTech checks off all the boxes on ncid's modem database.

On SourceForge there are two *armhf.deb files and one *all.deb file that are needed for a basic install. Unfortunately there is something within the all.deb that is compressed with a utility available to Ubuntu, but not Debian-based OSs like Raspberry Pi OS. I installed what I thought was the right utility, but it was a no-go for me.

Fortunately there is a *src.tar.gz, and the ncid User Manual give detailed instructions for building and installing. That's the way to go!

For USA users, there is practically no configuration needed. There's even a way to build an instant blacklist from an FCC database.

I still have a lot to learn. I'll be adding new capabilities to ncid as needed.

Vote
Twitter Facebook LinkedIn

Join the Discussion

Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.

Didn't find your answer?

Ask the community — no account required