levitt@zorro9.fidonet.org (Ken Levitt) (04/07/89)
>...phones that automatically redial a busy >number. One of the most famous of these is the Demon Dialer from Zoom >Telephonics in Boston. It does much more than redial; it is a complete >phone enhancement system. It is installed in series with the incoming >phone line and thus gives its capabilities to all telephones in the >house or office. > >One factor you should consider is whether the telephone has busy TONE >detection. > >It would also be nice if the phone would supply a local ring signal to >alert you when the call does go through. The Zoom Demon Dialer may have >these features, but I am not sure. I have had a Demon Dialer for many years and installed several a a company. The DD does detect the difference between busy and no answer in most but not all cases. One problem in using the demon dialer, is that you must leave the phone off the hook while it is doing redials. When it gets through, it places a VERY loud beep on the line and you must hit the switch hook to connect. If you happen to have the phone by your ear when the dialer beeps, the sound is painful and might even cause damage to your ear. While DD is in retry mode, it will accept incomming calls between trys, but it will not allow you to make a different outgoing call. DD will work for all lines on one phone (I have never tried this) or all phones on one line. If you have 2 lines thatn you need 2 Deamon Dialers and have to remember to update the second one every time you update the first one. It will hold up to about 170 numbers depending on the size of the numbers, but if you forget what you have programmed you are out of luck. Your only option would be to clear the entire memory and start over from scratch. It has power fail protection without a battery (a large capacitor that holds memory for a long time). I use it all the time, but when I installed it in an office, I found that the non-technical office staff found it too complex and ended up not using it. I once had to call for tech support and was pleased with the service that I received. I have one telephone that sometimes causes the DD to misdial. I suspect that the tone freqency is slightly off and that the DD is less tolerant of this than the phone company. I look forward to any new products that Zoom may produce. Two lines would be much better, 3 would be great. I hope that any computer interface will support calling party ID and that I could default the system to modem routing on one of my incomming lines because most of my modem callers are unattended machines which could not deal with having to send extra tones to select a modem. Ken Levitt -- Ken Levitt - via FidoNet node 1:16/390 UUCP: ...harvard!talcott!zorro9!levitt INTERNET: levitt%zorro9.uucp@talcott.harvard.edu
jiii@uunet.uu.net (John E Van Deusen III) (04/10/89)
I read in DATA COMMUNICATIONS a few months back that there was a "Son of Demon Dialer" product shown at Comdex. It was a 2400 Baud modem, matrix switch, mini data PBX, as I recall. I think it was about $700. Does anyone know anything more about this product? -- John E Van Deusen III, PO Box 9283, Boise, ID 83707, (208) 343-1865 uunet!visdc!jiii