Shop Phone

Darren Wright

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Staff member
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20,089
Location
Springfield, Missouri
I finally got my shop phone installed today.
IMAG0691.jpg

It's a VOIP (Voice over IP) or Internet based phone. But it's got the e-911 service included for about $7 per month. Have to pay about 1.5 cents per minute too, but no more than I plan to use it, shouldn't go more than $10 per month. I've got another one of these phones that will use the same connection (no additional cost) that will probably go in the shop area. Have programmed the 911 onto a quick dial for both.
 
Hard as it is, I try to ignore the phone when I am in the shop.
I try to ignore my wife too but I can feel her staring at the back of my head when I am working, even with ear plugs in. Impossible to ignore.
 
I try to ignore my wife too but I can feel her staring at the back of my head when I am working, even with ear plugs in. Impossible to ignore.

:rofl: Me too...She usually catches me standing and staring at something too...never working. Coincidence? or does she peak in the window and wait for the right moment?

The phone was mostly for 911 service, and it's in my office not the shop area. Thought I might use it for calling car part places and such too. As mentioned I may put the second one in the shop, but won't have the ringer up very loud as it has a flashing light on it too.
 
All I have to do is turn the channel away from NASCAR to get Brent's attention (of course during the 3 month blackout that doesn't work). A phone in the shop would be a good idea. At a minimum, an intercom. He jumps about 10 feet in the air if I catch him by surprise with his ear phones on...so I enter the garage either by door bell, or whistling, "Whistle While You Work"
 
...A phone in the shop would be a good idea. At a minimum, an intercom. He jumps about 10 feet in the air if I catch him by surprise with his ear phones on...so I enter the garage either by door bell, or whistling, "Whistle While You Work"

My shop is fifty or so feet from the house. I installed one of those cheap (Harbor Freight) driveway alarms on the corner of the house, so that when anyone comes past that corner, the alarm beeps in the shop. It works quite well. The only (minor) problem with it is that the dog sets it off, too, so there's an occasional false 'alarm.'

I do also have both an intercom and a phone in the shop, but they seldom get used.
 
Darren can a phone like that be interfaced with skype? I recently purchased a Freetalk module to be able to use a standard phone on skype and without the need to connect to a computer but quiet frankly its a mess and noisy its cost me more in calls because i end up putting down the skype phone and calling via landline which in my case is not even geared with low cost long distance. So i am in the market for another solution.
Boy i miss my skype cordless phone. Could never understand why Linksys abandoned it as a product.

On the topic of phones in the shop i am still looking for an economical means to alert me to it ringing when a machine is on without it scaring the heck out of me. I like hearing from Sharon that she makes a little i am here noise when approaching, wish i could get my family to understand that point. I am beginning to consider locking the door when i come into the shop as a safety mechanism but it would be counter productive if something happened and i needed to get out or have them get in in a hurry so thats off the list.

Jim you got a good idea in the driveway detector think i will look into seeing if i can set up something like that.
 
Darren can a phone like that be interfaced with skype? I recently purchased a Freetalk module to be able to use a standard phone on skype and without the need to connect to a computer but quiet frankly its a mess and noisy its cost me more in calls because i end up putting down the skype phone and calling via landline which in my case is not even geared with low cost long distance. So i am in the market for another solution.
Boy i miss my skype cordless phone. Could never understand why Linksys abandoned it as a product.

I originally had the Trixbox server setup with a SipToSis (Skype interface). It took a lot of tweaking to finally get it to work, which it did most of the time. I'm sure they've come a ways with stability too, looks like they may be using VNC to interface with skype now. Anyway I found a SIP provider like CallCentric was more stable, easier to setup, and had a better call quality. You might check them out to see if they cover all the countries you need to make calls to. I don't do any international calling at this point, so I don't know how they compare. Not trying to steer you away from it, but it may be more than you want to dive into trying to get Skype running, but having free calls with Skype to Skype is appealing.

As for phone hardware, I'd look more at the Cisco, Polycom, Grandstream, or Aastra IP phones. The Nortel phone I have requires a separate protocol that adds an extra level of configuration, where the others just work with the pbx software since they are true SIP phones. For that matter you could use a software based SIP phone on your computer with a headset to see if the setup will work for you before spending any money on the project.

One last thing, Trixbox is based on Asterisk and there are a few other flavors such as FreePBX that may be easier to configure, but most are linux based. I actually run mine inside of a virtualbox session on my Windows Vista server just so I don't have extra hardware laying around.

Here are some links...

Trixbox:
http://fonality.com/trixbox/downloa...htbartop-trixboxce&utm_campaign=fonalitysites

FreePBX:
http://www.freepbx.org/

SipToSis:
http://www.mhspot.com/sts/siptosis.html

FreePBX SipToSis install:
http://www.freepbx.org/support/documentation/howtos/how-to-set-up-a-skype-gateway
 
One other thought Rob. You have a Android based phone. With a Sip Phone application, like 3CXPhone, you could use it with the wifi around the house for connecting to your Asterisk based server too.
 
Wow thanks for all that info Darren, will put that investigation on the to do list. There is a ton of new stuff to learn there. I guess i have been spoilt by my old skype phone and never had the need to get with it in the VOIP side. Appreciate you giving all the links.
 
Our home phone came with two wireless hand sets that we use... one in the kitchen and the second went into the shop... it works about 90% of the time, if I don't have too many machines running I can hear it... then I have to take it outside usually to be able to talk clearly... it's at or near the end of the range and in a metal building, so just works better if I step outside.
 
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