[comp.dcom.modems] How do you wake up sleepy Racal Vadic modems?

russ@wpg.UUCP (Russell Lawrence) (03/24/88)

I've been trying to get the bugs out of a program that will make PC 
Pursuit truly useful for netlanders seeking to lower their phone bills 
by providing a smart front end for uucico.  In some areas, notably 
Washington, DC, telenet is using high density Racal-Vadic modems hooked 
up to their outgoing ports.  According to telenet, an "ATZ" string is 
supposed to wake up these modems and condition them for dialing.  
Unfortunately, there are a lot of "bad" modems that get hung up and 
never respond.  What's worse is that my program snags a lot of those bad 
modems because of higher than normal dialing frequency.   

Anyway, telenet personnel claim the modems are simply "bad", but since 
I've managed to locate as many as four or five of these "bad" modems in 
a twenty minute period (day in, day out), I'm beginning to suspect that 
the "ATZ" string may not be sufficient.  Could some of you Racal-Vadic 
experts tell me if there is some other string that I could send these 
modems when they fail to respond after a reasonable period of time?  
There must be some way to wake 'em up.  


-- 
Russell Lawrence, WP Group, POB 306, Metairie, LA 70004
AT&T:   +1 504 456 0001          COMPUSERVE: 72337,3261
UUCP:   {philabs,hpda,nbires,amdahl,...}!uunet!wpg!russ

David_W_Tamkin@cup.portal.com (03/26/88)

In article 392@wpg.UUCP, Russell Lawrence (a real one, not Gidget's
father of the same name) asks about waking up PCP modems.

Some PC Pursuers send the modems a ^E to get them into Racal-Vadic
command mode in order to get additional status messages that are not
provided in Hayes mode.  Unfortunately, they log off without remembering
to set them back to Hayes mode for the next caller.

If you get a modem that is still in Racal-Vadic command mode, it won't
respond to ATZ.  Send it *i (for "idle") to get it back to Hayes command
mode, then ATZ.  That may help SOME of the time.

David Tamkin (David_W_Tamkin@cup.portal.com)