I'm looking for hopefully a single device that I can use with an Asterisk server to do loud ringing over a paging system as well as be dialable to do normal voice paging through overhead speakers.
All of the paging infrastructure is there so it doesn't need to include it's own amp.
Not sure of a single device but a Dual-Port ATA would do the trick. You would wire port 1 to some loud ringer/trigger/etc, and line 2 could go to the PA.
Have a look at this from
Viking Electronics
I think the problem you are going to run into is that something connected to an analog device will either ring, or page.
Something would have to act like a phone. I have seen setups with traditional PBXs where people would open a phone and connect a PA to the speakes of a phone. When the phone rings, so does the PA. When the phone pages, ditto.
In other systems, the paging port can also pass a ringing sound to the PA. I wouldn't know if you could use the built in sound card to do the same thing in Asterisk.
I have the same situation trying to figure out how to use one horn for both ringing and paging. I was looking at
https://www.vikingelectronics.com/products/view_product.php?pid=317 . Still needs 2 different outputs from the phone system, or in the case of POTS lines, this will be wired in parallel.
Asterisk does support use of the console (sound-card) for use with paging and ringing. Last time I tried it the ringing part was iffy. I ended up recording the page, then when they hung up playing it back. Worked like a charm.
> "ended up recording the page, then when they hung up playing it back"
That's pretty cool to do that the system. I have seen dedicated boxes called Feedback eliminators that do that. It records the page then plays back, even repeats.
I think I may try using the sound-card output first. There is already an FXS used for ringing. Worse case I'll get the viking part I linked and use the FXS for ringing and console for paging.
The existing page amp was wired directly into the phone of the old key system.
With most of the options, I'll have three devices hung on there, an ATA, a paging adapter, and a loud ringing adapter. It doesn't seem that crazy to have one device to take care of all of them. Maybe that's my million dollar idea :-)
Thanks for the pointers
Yeah, it was a single asterisk context and a bash script. The context basically consisted of two lines. All the bash script did was background a process to play the sound file. And it also eliminated the feedback since some of the phones were near the horns.
If you want to test ringing you would need to edit alsa.conf (more then likely) and set autoanswer=no. Then you just add CONSOLE/dsp to your dial string and viola, you have an audible ringer on the sound card. Last time I tested this was 2 years ago on an old version of 1.2 Asterisk etc. It would lock the computer. It might work fine on new 1.4 Asterisk and kernels though. You will need to just test it.
Here is the page context:
---
[overheadpage]
exten => s,1,record(/tmp/papage,wav,3,60)
exten => h,1,system(/usr/local/bin/playpage.sh)
---
Then playpage.sh is basically this:
---
#!/bin/bash
alsaplay /path/to/some/notification-sound.wav &
wait 2 #(2 = the length of time in second of the notification sound)
alsaplay /tmp/papage.wav &
---
The last gotcha is that alsaplay doesn't always cleanly exit, so I put an entry into the cron to automatically kill (end-process) all alsaplay programs at 4am in the morning. That entry was as such:
---
0 4 * * * /usr/local/bin/alsaplayclean.sh
---
And the matching script was this:
---
#!/bin/bash
killall alsaplay
---
On a side note, once you have the sound card hooked up to the PA/Horns/Etc, you can also set-up start/break/stop bells that will automatically adjust to DST, do call announcement, etc. All you do is just change the sound file you play by creating different whatever.sh files and calling them with the system command in Asterisk or with cron. The system command will return almost immediately because of how the bash prompt is written which wont cause any issues with processing.
Maybe one day I'll document all this along with the other access control and security stuff I did at one point.
Along the same lines-a customer has a hosted voip system and wants to do overhead paging in their office/factory. Can they just get an IP phone and I can tap off the speaker leads and connect it to an amp?
I just installed one of those Viking M2W kits on a Vertical SBX IP phone to provide loud ringing at a small remote body shop. The IP phone volume wasn't real loud even at the highest setting. It seems to be working well. It was the only solution I could think of and the cost was acceptable.
https://www.vikingelectronics.com/products/view_product.php?pid=185
Jeff, I did exactly that when I was confronted with a similar setup last year. In my case though, the phone was to remain functional for the user. So I did a little surgery and tied the speaker leads to (what used to be) a headset jack on the phone's underside. I ran a line cord from there into a Viking CPA-7B, which worked like a champ. The only caviet is that the speakerphone can't be used for phone calls, otherwise the conversation is blasted across the warehouse floor. It wouldn't have been hard to disconnect the speaker altogether, but there was some weird reason why they wanted it left alone.
We use Viking CPA-7B for these applications. They work great.
I plan to install a 70V amplifier in this office. Will I still need the CPA-7B or something like it?
The CPA-7B is an analog interface, amplifier and steel horn all-in-one. At 11W max, it's not super duper loud. But as an aux alert or for a night ringer (in an area about the size of a tire shop) it's perfect.
There's no need for a CPA-7B if you intend to drive all the speakers with an independent 70V amp.
Can you explain your sitch with just a little more detail? Or call me? I'm wondering if you're working at an all-IP remote site where a pair of MultiTech MVP130 units could save the day.
This is a hosted VOIP system. The phones plug right into the network switch. The system itself is in some datacenter in New York.
It's one office of a small company. There are no branches or anything.
Tim-PM me your number, maybe you can give me some tips
Ok..did some investigation today. The horns that were left in the building by the old occupants are Valcom V-1030C. This looks like a 4 wire 24V system.
We added a couple more cable runs for additional IP phones so I think he is gonna hold off on the paging for now.
Those Valcom's are simple. Somewhere should be the power-supply for them and a single pair for the audio. If they had zone's then you should have a single pair per zone.
I always used the V1036C (15-watt horn) and they were plenty loud for most shops. I always just liked the simplicity of not needing to worry about transformers, voltage, etc. Call it a lack of knowledge/experience/confidence if you want.
If you feel like you've eaten your wheaties that day you can take a tone generator and tap the suspected pair for the horns. If you here the most god-awful chirping ever then you've found the right pair (assuming that the volume is turned up and they have power). If the thing is literally right above your head (specially the 15-watt 1036 ones) then wear ear protection.
The wire was 4 conductor alarm wire. 2 wires were for power and 2 for talk. The wire was cut off in the phone room, naturally.