[App_rpt-users] Phone System

["Jeremy R. Geeo [KDØEAV]"]

On 11/28/10 3:43 PM, Stephen Rodgers wrote:
> On 11/28/2010 06:37 AM, Greg Thornwall wrote:
>> How hard would it be to get allstar asterisk to work on our home phones?
>> Voice mail, a phone patch to allstar maybe, on hold music etc.

Information on this sort of configuration is generally available from 
sources on the web such as:
voip-info.org

>> I guess we would need a PCI phone board to interface with the phones in
>> the house and outside line (POT)?

There are interface cards available which will allow you to interface to 
an existing POTS line; but another option you might consider is finding 
an Internet phone company to use (ie callcentric.com) - they offer 
rather affordable options for phone service with only a network 
connection required. You can also use SIP phones (in the house) to 
interface to the Asterisk PBX - in lieu of purchasing hardware 
interfaces and running phone lines; just use your local network.

>> Any good detailed documentation on how to do this?
>>
> It can be done, but there are no instructions to do this with an app_rpt/asterrisk as that
> would not be worth the effort to maintain and document as few hams would be interested.

Not sure I would agree with the "few hams would be interested" -- maybe 
more of them need to know about this ability. That's one of the greatest 
features in my opinion - it's incredible flexibility in integrating with 
telecommunication systems.

> The version of Asterisk used in ACID is version 1.4 and it probably will not be updated
> anytime soon as app_rpt is highly dependent on the way Asterisk 1.4 does things.
>
> Digium recently released Asterisk 1.8 and Asterisk 1.6 is widely used.
> It may be better to use a more recent Asterisk version for a phone system.

I completely agree with this statement. If you are going to set up an 
Asterisk phone system - do it SEPERATELY from your AllStar system. 
AllStar being just another Asterisk system can be configured in a 
variety of ways to allow it to communicate with another Asterisk phone 
server (ie via IAX2). This will allow you to use some of the newer 
features of 1.6 (and 1.8).

> I run an Asterisk box separate from my radio system to provide flexibility
> should I want to take the radio system down to work on it.
>
> For dedicated standalone Asterisk system, the O'Reilly Asterisk book does a good job of explaining how to set
> Asterisk up.
>
> Steve
> WA6ZFT