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Old 3rd Dec 2021, 9:49 am   #1
boombox
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Default Cheap pulse dial compatible ATA adaptor for many phones ?

I seem to remember about a year ago somebody mentioning the availability of cheap pulse dial compatible ATA adaptors on eBay - something that could cope with maybe four or five phones and, crucially, was compatible with the GPO/BT standard for pulse dialling? They weren't expensive being considered well obsolete in business terms. They looked like a medium sized network switch....

Any ideas?

many thanks
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Old 3rd Dec 2021, 2:25 pm   #2
duncanlowe
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Default Re: Cheap pulse dial compatible ATA adaptor for many phones ?

I hav a Grandstream HT802. That has two 'lines' though I only use one. It was £40 ish just over 2 years ago. I tried it with an older BT phoone that I could switch to pulse dial, and it worked. Can't say if their newer stuff would.

One thing though: are you wanting to connect your phones to the same 'line' (as in phone number) or separate ones. I don't know how many phones you could hang on each port though.

Be careful, many of these on ebay were sold with a particular service and may be locked. Factory reset doesn't get around this on those units. I got a Vonage branded one that I couldn't use because of this before I bought new.
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Old 3rd Dec 2021, 6:56 pm   #3
dagskarlsen
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Default Re: Cheap pulse dial compatible ATA adaptor for many phones ?

The dialgizmo converts rotary pulses to DTMF, works great when it works, but during the last 10 years 2 of 4 of these has stopped working for me, and they do not answer when I try to email them. https://www.dialgizmo.com/ I have not been able to get my fingers into the grandstream ata, but I have one named UTSTARCOM, works well with pretty bad dials too, but the setup is not intuitive.

dsk

Last edited by dagskarlsen; 3rd Dec 2021 at 7:00 pm. Reason: adding info
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Old 3rd Dec 2021, 9:41 pm   #4
Graham G3ZVT
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Default Re: Cheap pulse dial compatible ATA adaptor for many phones ?

I have a couple of options available to me.

The first one is this Mitel SMART-1 controller

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These were intended to go between a PABX and POTS lines insert dialling prefixes to route the calls through alternative providers, in what the industry called, sometimes disingenuously, "LCR" or Least Cost Routing.

As DTMF dialling was far from universal at the time, these boxes have the ability to accept tones or pulses from the PABX (the vintage telephones in our case) and output DTMF to the line.

These are functionally equivalent to four Dialgizmos in one box, and if anyone has a similar SMART-1 unit I have the details to reprogramed them as simple converters without any digit manipulation.
The main problem with this approach is accessing IVRs, you know, those "Dial 1 for sales" etc menus because after the dialling is completed the unit "Cuts through" ie it switches itself out of the loop.

The other option is this little converter I built.

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It's based on an ATTiny85 microcontroller and work in a near identical fashion to the Rotatone but I have no idea if it's based on the same chip.

By far the most compete instructions of how to build and program it are by Joe (ThePillenwerfer) of this parish PDF

If I build another I will try this version by
Mat Millman
Attached Files
File Type: pdf A Homemade LD to DMTF Converter.pdf (1.75 MB, 82 views)
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Last edited by Graham G3ZVT; 3rd Dec 2021 at 9:58 pm.
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Old 14th Dec 2021, 12:10 pm   #5
boombox
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Default Re: Cheap pulse dial compatible ATA adaptor for many phones ?

Found it! Cisco VG224. Only problem is they seem to have gone up in price. I guess 'cos they're no longer made. But apparently they're good at converting pulse to tone and also parsing DTMF tones. I find my Linksys ATA adaptors are HOPELESS at parsing DTMF. Frequently just don't hear tones.
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Old 16th Dec 2021, 7:16 pm   #6
Pellseinydd
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Default Re: Cheap pulse dial compatible ATA adaptor for many phones ?

Quote:
Originally Posted by duncanlowe View Post
I hav a Grandstream HT802. That has two 'lines' though I only use one. It was £40 ish just over 2 years ago. I tried it with an older BT phoone that I could switch to pulse dial, and it worked. Can't say if their newer stuff would.

One thing though: are you wanting to connect your phones to the same 'line' (as in phone number) or separate ones. I don't know how many phones you could hang on each port though.

Be careful, many of these on ebay were sold with a particular service and may be locked. Factory reset doesn't get around this on those units. I got a Vonage branded one that I couldn't use because of this before I bought new.
All the Grandstream Handytone/HT5XX, 7XX and the current HT8XX ranges will work with pulse dialling telephones. However the HT5XX and HT7XX are no longer having their firmware upgraded. They were made for use with pulse dialling telephones working to the US specification rather than the UK specification. Both are 10 impulses per second - the difference being in the 'make/break ratio'. The UK specification uses 33.3% make and 66.6% break whereas the US spec is 40% make and 60% break. If the UK dial adjustment is 'spot on' the tolerance seems to overlap with the tolerance of the US spec. So you have no problem dialling. However but has been found that by slightly reducing the gap between the pulsing contacts, this has the effect of increasing the 'make' period i.e. nearer 40%. We've been using the HT ATAs on CNet for some years with a variety of old GPO phones.

I did discover when I first acquired an HT8XX series ATA that the old GPO lower frequency tones couldn't be added. The ATAs would not accept setting any tone below 301Hz. However they could be set up for the 'standard' numbering layout i.e. 0 to 1 in clockwise direction or could be set up with the much rarer Swedish reverse direction i.e. 1 to 0 in the clockwise direction.. I had a long series of emails with their technical folk and in the end they have now added the New Zealand/Oslo number layout i.e. 0 then 1 to 9 in clockwise direction plus the lower frequencies were allowed. They intend keeping pulse dialling on their ATAs - I pointed out the change to VoIP in the UK and that not only telephone collectors use pulse dialling phones but lots of folk still like to have 'grannies' old phone connected.

As pointed out - avoid any ATAs sign-written 'Vonage' or 'ACN' as they have different firmware locked to those carriers

The ATAs work directly off 12 volts DC rather than the 5 volts DC that many other do. I have an Grandstream GWX4008 connected to a WiFi enabled ATA - both mounted in an ex GPO wooden box with 8 LJU sockets mounted on it and both ATAs running off a 16AH 12 volt alarm battery. Links to my mobile phone by WiFi and hence I can set up to eight pulse dialling phones anywhere I can get a decent broadband signal on my mobile phone.
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