wheels@mks.UUCP (Gerry Wheeler) (02/16/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0056m01@vector.UUCP>, roy@phri (Roy Smith) writes: > On a totally different topic, I'm looking for a phone which will work > well in a noisy environment (i.e. my computer room). It's almost impossible > to hear the other party on the line, even if they shout, with a normal phone. > Possibly all that has to be done is to attenuate the sidetone. When I worked for Ma Bell as a repairman I modified my portable phone set to do this. At that time, most personnel had the old black unit, but units based on the handset of the Contempra phone were just coming into use, and that's what I had. (The Contempra was one of those phones with the dial in the handset, so it was an obvious choice.) The handset included a push button to disconnect, which was redundant because less than an inch away was a rocker switch to do the same thing. So, I opened it up and rewired the pushbutton to open the microphone. As you surmise, it worked very well in noisy situations, like when I was standing next to a busy road. The only tricky part was training the dispatchers to realize that I hadn't fallen off the pole and disconnected just because they couldn't hear me any more. :-) Many phones now include the same thing in the form of a mute button. However, it's usually advertised as a privacy feature, and I don't know many people who actually use it. -- Gerry Wheeler Phone: (519)884-2251 Mortice Kern Systems Inc. UUCP: uunet!watmath!mks!wheels 35 King St. North BIX: join mks Waterloo, Ontario N2J 2W9 CompuServe: 73260,1043