Initiate a phone call remotely?

[tony sayer]

Autodialler its called and yes you can do just that on contact closures. We have these at some remote locations to signal Mains failure and intruder alarms etc being set off.

A timer could do just that but make sure its battery backed in case the mains packs up;)..

There is a very nice Menvier one that can signal you if the temp drops too low ideal for checking that Granny is OK and not dying of Hypothermia if the central heating packs up at night etc...

This is the Granny version you can even listen into what's going on there;!..

BTW why don't you get your phone service of someone like Zen Internet they are a bit cheaper and I don't think they have the odd "must make calls" malarkey either..

And theres none of that connection charge bollox either..

[tony sayer]

The V version does.

Nice units go a few of them here and there...

[DrTeeth]

Tell your wife/girlfriend/platonic female friend/sister that you have a phone that needs to have some calls made from it and you won't charge her for making them?

[Bob Eager]

With the SPA3102 set up right, it's just as easy really.

The setup includes a (free) additional phone number. You call that number. The call gets redirected (via the SPA3102) to the outgoing line in the flat. It calls you. That's it.

1) Pick up your mobile 2) Dial the new number 3) Your home landline rings 4) Pick up landline and talk to yourself for a few seconds

Simples!

[Roger Mills]

I can't somehow see her travelling 130 miles just to use the phone!

[Roger Mills]

I'll have a look at that, thanks. That would also presumably give me a VoIP facility at the flat, similar to what I have at home via my PAP2.

I don't have a mobile with bundled minutes, but I could use my landline to ring the flat's VoIP and then make the flat's landline ring my home VoIP. Same result!

[SteveW]

How about a burglar alarm autodialler? Just need to add a timer to trigger it.

SteveW

[Michael R N Dolbear]

DrTeeth wrote

without actually

If you gave a cordless phone to a neighbor and set up the base with Orchid say to only allow inclusive geographical calls ?

[Graham.]

Far too complicated ;-)

20 odd years ago when people like me carried radio pagers I thought it would be good to have an auto dialler on my home made burglar alarm system (in truth a pressure mat, latching relay and loud bell).

I found a one-piece phone that looked promising. It had DTMF dialling and if you dialled a number then hung up, then kept your finger on the redial button, each time you went off hook the number was dialled.

Well not quite, the number always misdialed, the first digit was lost because the phone took a few ms to seize the line. This was fixed by simply prefixing the number with any single digit

So I modified the phone with a toggle switch across the LNR button in the keypad matrix and a relay was added to the alarm so a pair of contacts closed when it was triggered and this was wired across the hook-switch.

The phone allowed multiple pauses to be entered to wait for the service to answer, and then a short numerical message followed by #

Total cost of the project? £0

[Graham.]

I don't know if it's still offered although I have had mine for over

20 years. Not the card itself you understand, I lost that long ago but I committed the 12 digit account number & PIN to memory years ago. I only use it once in a blue moon but coincidently I used it on 22 Nov because I had flattened the battery of my Blackberry because I was using it as a satnav.

I just looked up what I was charged on BT.com and the 23second call cost me 16p which is a lot better than 60p minimum for cash calls

The payphone I used must have been a non-BT one or else I would have encurred a 14.4p PER MIN surcharge!! Unbelevable, but here it is in footnote 9

[Roger Mills]

1. The card would have to be associated with the phone line in my flat, and calls made using it would need to appear on the flat's bill
2. On those occasions when I don't visit the flat for a whole monthly charging period, I would need to make a couple of calls from somewhere else, using the card
3. These calls would have to count as qualifying calls with respect to free Caller Display, etc.

Anyone know whether this would work? If it did, a couple of calls at 20p a throw on just the odd month or two would certainly be the cheapest solution!

[Roger Mills]

Failing that, any comments on whether one of these would do what I want?

'd obviously have to provide a timer or something to trigger it at the right times.

It's very unlikely to be approved for use in the UK but, ignoring that, is it likely to actually *work* on a BT line?

Anyone care to translate the description on Ebay into something that I can understand?

[Andy Burns]

sign-up page seems to work

Sounds reasonable

[Roger Burton West]

If all it does is pick up, blat DTMF down the line, play a recorded message, and hang up, it _ought_ to work on a BT line.

Though personally I'd probably use a Raspberry Pi and an old modem. :-)

R

[Graham.]

yes

yes

My understanding is that they do.

It's 12p + VAT from any land line including non BT payphones. It's 26.4p + VAT from a BT payphone.

Can anyone think of another commodity where, by design, you make your competitor's service better value than your own? (I know *why* they do it, I'm just wondering if there's another example).

[Phil]

But the Pi could have some other uses, connect a webcam or two and keep an eye on things.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Preconfigure the modem to auto-dial the appropriate number when DTR is raised (and hang-up when it's dropped), and drive DTR from a timeswitch (via relay, etc) which switches on for a minute every week.