Pete Holsberg <pjh@mccc.edu> (08/24/90)
CINDI is a voice messaging system that we have installed at the college. However, we do not have phones with "message waiting" lights on them. Does anyone know of a mod we could make so that we could add those lights? Otherwise, we have to poll CINDI every time we return to the office! Yuck!! Thanks, Prof. Peter J. Holsberg Mercer County Community College Voice: 609-586-4800 Engineering Technology, Computers and Math UUCP:...!princeton!mccc!pjh 1200 Old Trenton Road, Trenton, NJ 08690 Internet: pjh@mccc.edu [Moderator's Note: Another option might be instead of message-waiting lights to modify the phone switch to give 'stutter dial tone' as an indicator of a message, the way some telcos like IBT and Centel handle it. PAT]
"Barton F. Bruce" <BRUCE@ccavax.camb.com> (08/31/90)
In article <11253@accuvax.nwu.edu>, Pete Holsberg <pjh@mccc.edu> writes: > college. However, we do not have phones with "message waiting" lights > on them. Does anyone know of a mod we could make so that we could add Modifying a (2)500 type set to have the traditional M/W lamp is trivial, but a real pain if any quantity needs to be done. The real question is whether your switch is spiking your line with the M/W supply voltage that is high enough to fire the neon M/W lamp. Take a vanilla neon pocket line voltage tester and try it across tip and ring. It will light if your switch has M/W turned on for you. It will also flutter during ringing but presents so low a load that it can't trip ringing. The commercial kits to add the feature are simply some snap in mount lamp cartridge manufacturer's product with fast-ons crimped on the wires, and a pre drilled new face mat. Other models may have a bracket that mounts under the dial's left bracket screw. Typically these kits have lamp leads that are barely long enough and you might just as well buy the lamps bulk, make a jig for drilling face plate holes, and put some students to work. Allen-Tel (available through Graybar, at least) has made such kits (with too short leads...) for years. Somewhere is the zillion ads for new/used/rebuilt/cloned stuff in Telecom Gear ('The Marketplace to Buy & Sell Telecom Gear' 800-322-5156 - the mag the interconnect peddler wishes you never saw...) you will find someone with parts or kits you need. Another popular mount location is to bore a hole in the housing above the face plate but where the lamp cartridge won't hit the hook switch. Even longer lamp leads are needed to make the phone easy to assemble this way. For an outboard lamp, the old large beehive lamp housings (Suttle makes them still, I am sure) can be had with a neon lamp. Recently I have seen a clip/stick on the side of your phone little mini box (like the add on hold buttons or hearing impaired amps) that has a short modular cord to plug into the rear of the phone, and a jack to receive the phone's normal line cord. This is the sort of thing someone like Proctor or Crest is apt to make, but I don't remember where I saw it. You might try 800-HI-HELLO if you don't mind paying HI prices. n.b. - no affiliation with any vendor mentioned [Moderator's Note: That's one thing I have noticed about the Hello Direct people. Their prices are HI. They have excellent quality merchandise but not *that much better* for the prices they get. PAT]