henry (10/29/82)
We recently had our dialer in the shop here for a checkout. We'd had considerable trouble dialing out with it. It turns out that a non-trivial part of the problem was the time delay between the end of dialing and the recognition of carrier from the other end. Note that the 3451PA is a "blind" dialer, which does not recognize things like ringing from the other end. This blindness goes deeper than is obvious, though: it is not smart enough to listen to the beep and figure out which 1200-baud protocol the other end wants to use. It just tries 3400, waits 5 seconds, and then switches to 212. I believe it goes back and forth until it either hits it right or times out. Now, all this becomes much more serious if you bear in mind that a long-distance call can take 15 seconds or more to go through, and the 3451PA times out after 25 seconds! In theory, there may be just enough time; in practice, it just doesn't work that way. The fix? Easy. Remember that you put a "k" in the number to give a 5-second pause. Just slap a couple of those on the *end* of the number to delay the start of the timeout until the connection is almost ready. It makes a big difference.
faunt (11/03/82)
Yep, he's right. Works like a champ. Just add those K's on the end, and gets right in there.