I have a home phone, wired, but supplied by Verizon Fios.

How can I know if I have voicemail waiting without picking up the phone?

Like a light or a beeper.

I'm willing to buy something.

When I google, everything is about cell phones.

I have a phone machine, and when a message is left there a light flashes
on every phone in the house, plus the base phone beeps once in a while.
That's just fine.

But sometimes for reasons I don't understand**, the voicemail answers
the phone before the machine does. Today there were 5 such messages
including my brother who called Sunday, but it was too late on Monday to
call him back, so it will take me two days. I don't want a repeat of
that. (The other 4 were silence.)

**I've set the ring count before anssering on the voice mail to 6, the
maximum, and on the phone machine to 4, so the machine should always
answer first. Unless the storage is full but it never is, and I
wouldn't be complaining if it were. Actually it's nice that voicemail
backs up the machine -- at least I think it would, maybe, I think --
after it takes about 30 messages. At the least it's nice that voicemail
will take messages when I'm on the phone and I don't respond to
call-waiting, which of course is usually spammers, so I don't even look.

I talked to Verizon and there is no way I myself can turn off my voice
mail. They will do it but then I have to call again, to turn it back on
when I go out of town. Before the virus I planned to go out of town
last March,



(I also made another mistake. Even though I had long deprecated voice
mail for having to pick up the handset to know about it, I recorded a
messaage, "I'm busy. Please leave a message or call back later."
Nowhere near strong enough wrt calling back later. I'll fix that
tonight.)

BTW, voicemail gives two messages, the one I recorded which plays if the
phone is off the hook and probably if I'm on the phone. AND the one
which plays if no one answes. That just slowly recites my phone number
in a computer voice, then after a while asks if the caller wants to save
it, redo it, erase it. Maybe there was a way to record a real message
but I didn't see it.

On 1/5/2021 9:20 AM, micky wrote:
I have a home phone, wired, but supplied by Verizon Fios.

How can I know if I have voicemail waiting without picking up the phone?

Like a light or a beeper.

I'm willing to buy something.

When I google, everything is about cell phones.

I have a phone machine, and when a message is left there a light flashes
on every phone in the house, plus the base phone beeps once in a while.
That's just fine.

But sometimes for reasons I don't understand**, the voicemail answers
the phone before the machine does. Today there were 5 such messages
including my brother who called Sunday, but it was too late on Monday to
call him back, so it will take me two days. I don't want a repeat of
that. (The other 4 were silence.)

**I've set the ring count before anssering on the voice mail to 6, the
maximum, and on the phone machine to 4, so the machine should always
answer first. Unless the storage is full but it never is, and I
wouldn't be complaining if it were. Actually it's nice that voicemail
backs up the machine -- at least I think it would, maybe, I think --
after it takes about 30 messages. At the least it's nice that voicemail
will take messages when I'm on the phone and I don't respond to
call-waiting, which of course is usually spammers, so I don't even look.

I talked to Verizon and there is no way I myself can turn off my voice
mail. They will do it but then I have to call again, to turn it back on
when I go out of town. Before the virus I planned to go out of town
last March,

I'm confused. You have both a machine and Verizon voice mail? Sounds
like they are possibly working against each other. I'd try to live with
just one. I use the machine and if I'm out of town, tough, you wait
until I get back.

In alt.home.repair, on Tue, 5 Jan 2021 08:07:32 -0500, Ed Pawlowski
wrote:

On 1/5/2021 9:20 AM, micky wrote:
I have a home phone, wired, but supplied by Verizon Fios.

How can I know if I have voicemail waiting without picking up the phone?

Like a light or a beeper.

I'm willing to buy something.

When I google, everything is about cell phones.

I have a phone machine, and when a message is left there a light flashes
on every phone in the house, plus the base phone beeps once in a while.
That's just fine.

But sometimes for reasons I don't understand**, the voicemail answers
the phone before the machine does. Today there were 5 such messages
including my brother who called Sunday, but it was too late on Monday to
call him back, so it will take me two days. I don't want a repeat of
that. (The other 4 were silence.)

**I've set the ring count before anssering on the voice mail to 6, the
maximum, and on the phone machine to 4, so the machine should always
answer first. Unless the storage is full but it never is, and I
wouldn't be complaining if it were. Actually it's nice that voicemail
backs up the machine -- at least I think it would, maybe, I think --
after it takes about 30 messages. At the least it's nice that voicemail
will take messages when I'm on the phone and I don't respond to
call-waiting, which of course is usually spammers, so I don't even look.

I talked to Verizon and there is no way I myself can turn off my voice
mail. They will do it but then I have to call again, to turn it back on
when I go out of town. Before the virus I planned to go out of town
last March,

I'm confused. You have both a machine and Verizon voice mail? Sounds
like they are possibly working against each other.

Yes, I have both, but they're not working against each other. Normally
the phone machine answers. Sometimes the voicemail does a) when the
phone is accidentally off the hook, which has happened, b) when I'm on
the phone, which has happened a lot, and c) sometimes when I can't
account for it, but eventually I'll figure that out.

I'd try to live with
just one.

Let's assume I chose voicemail. How can I know if I have a voicemail
message waiting without picking up the phone? Is there a gizmo I can
buy, or some other way?

I use the machine and if I'm out of town, tough, you wait
until I get back.

The problem is when I *am* home and I get a voicemail but don't know
I"ve gotten it, because I haven't used the home phone to make a call.

On 1/5/21 9:20 AM, micky wrote:
I have a home phone, wired, but supplied by Verizon Fios.

How can I know if I have voicemail waiting without picking up the phone?

Like a light or a beeper.

I'm willing to buy something.

When I google, everything is about cell phones.

I have a phone machine, and when a message is left there a light flashes
on every phone in the house, plus the base phone beeps once in a while.
That's just fine.

But sometimes for reasons I don't understand**, the voicemail answers
the phone before the machine does. Today there were 5 such messages
including my brother who called Sunday, but it was too late on Monday to
call him back, so it will take me two days. I don't want a repeat of
that. (The other 4 were silence.)

**I've set the ring count before anssering on the voice mail to 6, the
maximum, and on the phone machine to 4, so the machine should always
answer first. Unless the storage is full but it never is, and I
wouldn't be complaining if it were. Actually it's nice that voicemail
backs up the machine -- at least I think it would, maybe, I think --
after it takes about 30 messages. At the least it's nice that voicemail
will take messages when I'm on the phone and I don't respond to
call-waiting, which of course is usually spammers, so I don't even look.

I talked to Verizon and there is no way I myself can turn off my voice
mail. They will do it but then I have to call again, to turn it back on
when I go out of town. Before the virus I planned to go out of town
last March,



(I also made another mistake. Even though I had long deprecated voice
mail for having to pick up the handset to know about it, I recorded a
messaage, "I'm busy. Please leave a message or call back later."
Nowhere near strong enough wrt calling back later. I'll fix that
tonight.)

BTW, voicemail gives two messages, the one I recorded which plays if the
phone is off the hook and probably if I'm on the phone. AND the one
which plays if no one answes. That just slowly recites my phone number
in a computer voice, then after a while asks if the caller wants to save
it, redo it, erase it. Maybe there was a way to record a real message
but I didn't see it.

Yes there are devices to do what you want.
One thing first, you need to know if the signal you get from your telco
is Stutter Dial Tone, or "FSK"

You can read the gory details here, and see which product works for you

http://www.sandman.com/messwait.html

On Tuesday, January 5, 2021 at 8:07:42 AM UTC-5, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 1/5/2021 9:20 AM, micky wrote:
I have a home phone, wired, but supplied by Verizon Fios.

How can I know if I have voicemail waiting without picking up the phone?

Like a light or a beeper.

I'm willing to buy something.

When I google, everything is about cell phones.

I have a phone machine, and when a message is left there a light flashes
on every phone in the house, plus the base phone beeps once in a while.
That's just fine.

But sometimes for reasons I don't understand**, the voicemail answers
the phone before the machine does. Today there were 5 such messages
including my brother who called Sunday, but it was too late on Monday to
call him back, so it will take me two days. I don't want a repeat of
that. (The other 4 were silence.)

**I've set the ring count before anssering on the voice mail to 6, the
maximum, and on the phone machine to 4, so the machine should always
answer first. Unless the storage is full but it never is, and I
wouldn't be complaining if it were. Actually it's nice that voicemail
backs up the machine -- at least I think it would, maybe, I think --
after it takes about 30 messages. At the least it's nice that voicemail
will take messages when I'm on the phone and I don't respond to
call-waiting, which of course is usually spammers, so I don't even look.

I talked to Verizon and there is no way I myself can turn off my voice
mail. They will do it but then I have to call again, to turn it back on
when I go out of town. Before the virus I planned to go out of town
last March,

I'm confused. You have both a machine and Verizon voice mail? Sounds
like they are possibly working against each other. I'd try to live with
just one. I use the machine and if I'm out of town, tough, you wait
until I get back.

The machine I had at home you could easily retrieve the messages while
away. You set a three digit code and when away you called home, when the
machine answered you entered the code and it played your messages. You
can't put a light on because that would require the phone companies to have
some standardized method by which to communicate to the device in your
home that a message is there. I've never heard of such a thing. If anything,
now that phones are going VOIP, I would think some phone companies could
have a feature where they would text or email you if you have phone messages
on their systems or have apps for smart phones so you could do visual VM.
But then more and more people are just using smart phones these days,
the whole home phone thing must be dying, so I would not expect much in
the way of innovation these days. I would bet that his machine has the
ability to call in to get messages. In which case, like you say, just use that
and disable the phone system one. If not, get a new machine for a few bucks.

On Tuesday, January 5, 2021 at 8:48:48 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On 1/5/21 9:20 AM, micky wrote:
I have a home phone, wired, but supplied by Verizon Fios.

How can I know if I have voicemail waiting without picking up the phone?

Like a light or a beeper.

I'm willing to buy something.

When I google, everything is about cell phones.

I have a phone machine, and when a message is left there a light flashes
on every phone in the house, plus the base phone beeps once in a while.
That's just fine.

But sometimes for reasons I don't understand**, the voicemail answers
the phone before the machine does. Today there were 5 such messages
including my brother who called Sunday, but it was too late on Monday to
call him back, so it will take me two days. I don't want a repeat of
that. (The other 4 were silence.)

**I've set the ring count before anssering on the voice mail to 6, the
maximum, and on the phone machine to 4, so the machine should always
answer first. Unless the storage is full but it never is, and I
wouldn't be complaining if it were. Actually it's nice that voicemail
backs up the machine -- at least I think it would, maybe, I think --
after it takes about 30 messages. At the least it's nice that voicemail
will take messages when I'm on the phone and I don't respond to
call-waiting, which of course is usually spammers, so I don't even look.

I talked to Verizon and there is no way I myself can turn off my voice
mail. They will do it but then I have to call again, to turn it back on
when I go out of town. Before the virus I planned to go out of town
last March,



(I also made another mistake. Even though I had long deprecated voice
mail for having to pick up the handset to know about it, I recorded a
messaage, "I'm busy. Please leave a message or call back later."
Nowhere near strong enough wrt calling back later. I'll fix that
tonight.)

BTW, voicemail gives two messages, the one I recorded which plays if the
phone is off the hook and probably if I'm on the phone. AND the one
which plays if no one answes. That just slowly recites my phone number
in a computer voice, then after a while asks if the caller wants to save
it, redo it, erase it. Maybe there was a way to record a real message
but I didn't see it.

Yes there are devices to do what you want.
One thing first, you need to know if the signal you get from your telco
is Stutter Dial Tone, or "FSK"

You can read the gory details here, and see which product works for you

http://www.sandman.com/messwait.html

Interesting, so there are standard protocols. But that description seems old
and covers analog phones wired to the central office. Sounds like Micky has
VOIP and I wonder if they continued those?

On Tue, 05 Jan 21 13:37:29 UTC, micky wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Tue, 5 Jan 2021 08:07:32 -0500, Ed Pawlowski
wrote:

On 1/5/2021 9:20 AM, micky wrote:
I have a home phone, wired, but supplied by Verizon Fios.

How can I know if I have voicemail waiting without picking up the phone?

Like a light or a beeper.

I'm willing to buy something.

When I google, everything is about cell phones.

I have a phone machine, and when a message is left there a light flashes
on every phone in the house, plus the base phone beeps once in a while.
That's just fine.

But sometimes for reasons I don't understand**, the voicemail answers
the phone before the machine does. Today there were 5 such messages
including my brother who called Sunday, but it was too late on Monday to
call him back, so it will take me two days. I don't want a repeat of
that. (The other 4 were silence.)

**I've set the ring count before anssering on the voice mail to 6, the
maximum, and on the phone machine to 4, so the machine should always
answer first. Unless the storage is full but it never is, and I
wouldn't be complaining if it were. Actually it's nice that voicemail
backs up the machine -- at least I think it would, maybe, I think --
after it takes about 30 messages. At the least it's nice that voicemail
will take messages when I'm on the phone and I don't respond to
call-waiting, which of course is usually spammers, so I don't even look.

I talked to Verizon and there is no way I myself can turn off my voice
mail. They will do it but then I have to call again, to turn it back on
when I go out of town. Before the virus I planned to go out of town
last March,

I'm confused. You have both a machine and Verizon voice mail? Sounds
like they are possibly working against each other.

Yes, I have both, but they're not working against each other. Normally
the phone machine answers. Sometimes the voicemail does a) when the
phone is accidentally off the hook, which has happened, b) when I'm on
the phone, which has happened a lot, and c) sometimes when I can't
account for it, but eventually I'll figure that out.

I'd try to live with
just one.

Let's assume I chose voicemail. How can I know if I have a voicemail
message waiting without picking up the phone? Is there a gizmo I can
buy, or some other way?

I use the machine and if I'm out of town, tough, you wait
until I get back.

The problem is when I *am* home and I get a voicemail but don't know
I"ve gotten it, because I haven't used the home phone to make a call.

I am guessing if you are on the phone at the time it goes to the FiOS
voice mail. I never set up the telco voice mail on my phone so I don't
have that problem. I have call waiting and 9 other features I seldom
use as part of the bundle. The call waiting gives me a little chirp if
I am on the phone and a call comes in. I can switch to the other party
or conference us all in together. Usually is it Rachel from Card
Services or "Apple/Microsoft support" tho. They never leave a message.

On Tue, 05 Jan 21 09:20:10 UTC, micky wrote:

I have a home phone, wired, but supplied by Verizon Fios.
How can I know if I have voicemail waiting without picking up the phone?
Like a light or a beeper.
I'm willing to buy something.


Our Panasonic cordless handsets indicate "Missed Call"
on the little lcd display - but not specifically "Voicemail".
So it kinda sorta half-works .. lets us know when to pick up
and check for the voicemail dashing dialtone.
Why do you find that picking up the handset to check
for voicemails such a chore ? I do it a couple times per day
for just checking ... after I've been away for a few hours
sometimes when I get up in the morning - not a big deal.
John T.

On 1/5/21 9:10 AM, trader_4 wrote:
On Tuesday, January 5, 2021 at 8:48:48 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On 1/5/21 9:20 AM, micky wrote:
I have a home phone, wired, but supplied by Verizon Fios.

How can I know if I have voicemail waiting without picking up the phone?

Like a light or a beeper.

I'm willing to buy something.

When I google, everything is about cell phones.

I have a phone machine, and when a message is left there a light flashes
on every phone in the house, plus the base phone beeps once in a while.
That's just fine.

But sometimes for reasons I don't understand**, the voicemail answers
the phone before the machine does. Today there were 5 such messages
including my brother who called Sunday, but it was too late on Monday to
call him back, so it will take me two days. I don't want a repeat of
that. (The other 4 were silence.)

**I've set the ring count before anssering on the voice mail to 6, the
maximum, and on the phone machine to 4, so the machine should always
answer first. Unless the storage is full but it never is, and I
wouldn't be complaining if it were. Actually it's nice that voicemail
backs up the machine -- at least I think it would, maybe, I think --
after it takes about 30 messages. At the least it's nice that voicemail
will take messages when I'm on the phone and I don't respond to
call-waiting, which of course is usually spammers, so I don't even look.

I talked to Verizon and there is no way I myself can turn off my voice
mail. They will do it but then I have to call again, to turn it back on
when I go out of town. Before the virus I planned to go out of town
last March,



(I also made another mistake. Even though I had long deprecated voice
mail for having to pick up the handset to know about it, I recorded a
messaage, "I'm busy. Please leave a message or call back later."
Nowhere near strong enough wrt calling back later. I'll fix that
tonight.)

BTW, voicemail gives two messages, the one I recorded which plays if the
phone is off the hook and probably if I'm on the phone. AND the one
which plays if no one answes. That just slowly recites my phone number
in a computer voice, then after a while asks if the caller wants to save
it, redo it, erase it. Maybe there was a way to record a real message
but I didn't see it.

Yes there are devices to do what you want.
One thing first, you need to know if the signal you get from your telco
is Stutter Dial Tone, or "FSK"

You can read the gory details here, and see which product works for you

http://www.sandman.com/messwait.html

Interesting, so there are standard protocols. But that description seems old
and covers analog phones wired to the central office. Sounds like Micky has
VOIP and I wonder if they continued those?


On our Comcast/Xfinity VOIP "landline", we get the stutter dial tone,
but AFAIK not all VOIP devices do.

On Tuesday, January 5, 2021 at 10:53:31 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On 1/5/21 9:10 AM, trader_4 wrote:
On Tuesday, January 5, 2021 at 8:48:48 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On 1/5/21 9:20 AM, micky wrote:
I have a home phone, wired, but supplied by Verizon Fios.

How can I know if I have voicemail waiting without picking up the phone?

Like a light or a beeper.

I'm willing to buy something.

When I google, everything is about cell phones.

I have a phone machine, and when a message is left there a light flashes
on every phone in the house, plus the base phone beeps once in a while.
That's just fine.

But sometimes for reasons I don't understand**, the voicemail answers
the phone before the machine does. Today there were 5 such messages
including my brother who called Sunday, but it was too late on Monday to
call him back, so it will take me two days. I don't want a repeat of
that. (The other 4 were silence.)

**I've set the ring count before anssering on the voice mail to 6, the
maximum, and on the phone machine to 4, so the machine should always
answer first. Unless the storage is full but it never is, and I
wouldn't be complaining if it were. Actually it's nice that voicemail
backs up the machine -- at least I think it would, maybe, I think --
after it takes about 30 messages. At the least it's nice that voicemail
will take messages when I'm on the phone and I don't respond to
call-waiting, which of course is usually spammers, so I don't even look.

I talked to Verizon and there is no way I myself can turn off my voice
mail. They will do it but then I have to call again, to turn it back on
when I go out of town. Before the virus I planned to go out of town
last March,



(I also made another mistake. Even though I had long deprecated voice
mail for having to pick up the handset to know about it, I recorded a
messaage, "I'm busy. Please leave a message or call back later."
Nowhere near strong enough wrt calling back later. I'll fix that
tonight.)

BTW, voicemail gives two messages, the one I recorded which plays if the
phone is off the hook and probably if I'm on the phone. AND the one
which plays if no one answes. That just slowly recites my phone number
in a computer voice, then after a while asks if the caller wants to save
it, redo it, erase it. Maybe there was a way to record a real message
but I didn't see it.

Yes there are devices to do what you want.
One thing first, you need to know if the signal you get from your telco
is Stutter Dial Tone, or "FSK"

You can read the gory details here, and see which product works for you

http://www.sandman.com/messwait.html

Interesting, so there are standard protocols. But that description seems old
and covers analog phones wired to the central office. Sounds like Micky has
VOIP and I wonder if they continued those?

On our Comcast/Xfinity VOIP "landline", we get the stutter dial tone,
but AFAIK not all VOIP devices do.

Seems to me the easy solution is to just use one home voice machine, disable
the phone provider one. Micky says he needs the phone company so he can retrieve
messages while away, but I bet the box he already had does that. I would think
every machine for many decades has allowed you to retrieve messages
while away using a code you enter by touch tone. And if his doesn't, you can find
one that does for not much on Ebay.

On 1/5/21 9:20 AM, micky wrote:
I have a home phone, wired, but supplied by Verizon Fios.

How can I know if I have voicemail waiting without picking up the phone?

Like a light or a beeper.

I'm willing to buy something.

When I google, everything is about cell phones.

I have a phone machine, and when a message is left there a light flashes
on every phone in the house, plus the base phone beeps once in a while.
That's just fine.

But sometimes for reasons I don't understand**, the voicemail answers
the phone before the machine does. Today there were 5 such messages
including my brother who called Sunday, but it was too late on Monday to
call him back, so it will take me two days. I don't want a repeat of
that. (The other 4 were silence.)

**I've set the ring count before anssering on the voice mail to 6, the
maximum, and on the phone machine to 4, so the machine should always
answer first. Unless the storage is full but it never is, and I
wouldn't be complaining if it were. Actually it's nice that voicemail
backs up the machine -- at least I think it would, maybe, I think --
after it takes about 30 messages. At the least it's nice that voicemail
will take messages when I'm on the phone and I don't respond to
call-waiting, which of course is usually spammers, so I don't even look.

I talked to Verizon and there is no way I myself can turn off my voice
mail. They will do it but then I have to call again, to turn it back on
when I go out of town. Before the virus I planned to go out of town
last March,



(I also made another mistake. Even though I had long deprecated voice
mail for having to pick up the handset to know about it, I recorded a
messaage, "I'm busy. Please leave a message or call back later."
Nowhere near strong enough wrt calling back later. I'll fix that
tonight.)
Can you forward your calls from your landline to your cellphone?
Is there some
way to use wifi to do it?

"trader_4" wrote in message
...
On Tuesday, January 5, 2021 at 10:53:31 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On 1/5/21 9:10 AM, trader_4 wrote:
On Tuesday, January 5, 2021 at 8:48:48 AM UTC-5,
wrote:
On 1/5/21 9:20 AM, micky wrote:
I have a home phone, wired, but supplied by Verizon Fios.

How can I know if I have voicemail waiting without picking up the
phone?

Like a light or a beeper.

I'm willing to buy something.

When I google, everything is about cell phones.

I have a phone machine, and when a message is left there a light
flashes
on every phone in the house, plus the base phone beeps once in a
while.
That's just fine.

But sometimes for reasons I don't understand**, the voicemail answers
the phone before the machine does. Today there were 5 such messages
including my brother who called Sunday, but it was too late on Monday
to
call him back, so it will take me two days. I don't want a repeat of
that. (The other 4 were silence.)

**I've set the ring count before anssering on the voice mail to 6,
the
maximum, and on the phone machine to 4, so the machine should always
answer first. Unless the storage is full but it never is, and I
wouldn't be complaining if it were. Actually it's nice that voicemail
backs up the machine -- at least I think it would, maybe, I think --
after it takes about 30 messages. At the least it's nice that
voicemail
will take messages when I'm on the phone and I don't respond to
call-waiting, which of course is usually spammers, so I don't even
look.

I talked to Verizon and there is no way I myself can turn off my
voice
mail. They will do it but then I have to call again, to turn it back
on
when I go out of town. Before the virus I planned to go out of town
last March,



(I also made another mistake. Even though I had long deprecated voice
mail for having to pick up the handset to know about it, I recorded a
messaage, "I'm busy. Please leave a message or call back later."
Nowhere near strong enough wrt calling back later. I'll fix that
tonight.)

BTW, voicemail gives two messages, the one I recorded which plays if
the
phone is off the hook and probably if I'm on the phone. AND the one
which plays if no one answes. That just slowly recites my phone
number
in a computer voice, then after a while asks if the caller wants to
save
it, redo it, erase it. Maybe there was a way to record a real message
but I didn't see it.

Yes there are devices to do what you want.
One thing first, you need to know if the signal you get from your
telco
is Stutter Dial Tone, or "FSK"

You can read the gory details here, and see which product works for
you

http://www.sandman.com/messwait.html

Interesting, so there are standard protocols. But that description
seems old
and covers analog phones wired to the central office. Sounds like Micky
has
VOIP and I wonder if they continued those?

On our Comcast/Xfinity VOIP "landline", we get the stutter dial tone,
but AFAIK not all VOIP devices do.

Seems to me the easy solution is to just use one home
voice machine, disable the phone provider one.

That doesnt work with calls you miss because
the home voice machine has picked up a call
and you get another incoming call before
the home voice machine lets the line go.

Only the phone provider voicemail can field that one.

Micky says he needs the phone company so he can retrieve
messages while away, but I bet the box he already had does
that. I would think every machine for many decades has
allowed you to retrieve messages while away using a code
you enter by touch tone. And if his doesn't, you can find
one that does for not much on Ebay.

wrote in message
...
On Tue, 05 Jan 21 09:20:10 UTC, micky wrote:

I have a home phone, wired, but supplied by Verizon Fios.
How can I know if I have voicemail waiting without picking up the phone?
Like a light or a beeper.
I'm willing to buy something.


Our Panasonic cordless handsets indicate "Missed Call"
on the little lcd display - but not specifically "Voicemail".
So it kinda sorta half-works .. lets us know when to pick up
and check for the voicemail dashing dialtone.

Why do you find that picking up the handset
to check for voicemails such a chore ?

Because its much more convenient
to just notice a flashing led instead.

I do it a couple times per day for just checking ...
after I've been away for a few hours sometimes
when I get up in the morning - not a big deal.

But much more convenient to just
notice a flashing led instead.

On Wed, 6 Jan 2021 04:45:17 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

FLUSH the trolling senile asshole's latest troll**** unread

--
Sqwertz to Rodent Speed:
"This is just a hunch, but I'm betting you're kinda an argumentative
asshole.
MID:

On Wed, 6 Jan 2021 04:59:07 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

FLUSH the trolling senile asshole's latest troll**** unread

04:59 in Australia? And you are STILL up and trolling, you abnormal trolling
senile swine? LOL

--
"Anonymous" to trolling senile Rodent Speed:
"You can **** off as you know less than pig **** you sad
little ignorant ****."
MID:

On 1/5/2021 10:06 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 05 Jan 21 09:20:10 UTC, micky wrote:

I have a home phone, wired, but supplied by Verizon Fios.
How can I know if I have voicemail waiting without picking up the phone?
Like a light or a beeper.
I'm willing to buy something.


Our Panasonic cordless handsets indicate "Missed Call"
on the little lcd display - but not specifically "Voicemail".
So it kinda sorta half-works .. lets us know when to pick up
and check for the voicemail dashing dialtone.
Why do you find that picking up the handset to check
for voicemails such a chore ? I do it a couple times per day
for just checking ... after I've been away for a few hours
sometimes when I get up in the morning - not a big deal.
John T.


We also have a Panasonic cordless handset system which includes it's own
voice mail recorder in the base unit. We use Comcast VOIP. We don't
use the Panasonic's voice mail system and leave it turned off (there's a
push on/push off switch for that on the base unit. The entire system
can be configured to respond or not to respond to a signal apparently
sent by Comcast when there's a new voicemail message in our Comcast
voicemail in box. (Panasonic refers to this as Voice Mail tone
detection). When that feature is turned on, the text, "Voicemail msg.
via phone co." is displayed on every handset's LCD display, and a LED
message indicator light on the top of every handset flashes slowly
whenever there's a new, unheard telco voicemail message. You can also
store your telco's voice mail access phone number so the phone will
automatically dial the number and access your telco voice mail messages
when you press a soft key that gains the label ""Access". These
features are entire independent of the phone base's built in voice mail
system - which as I already said we keep turned off.

Therefore, Micky's problem seems to be with detecting voice mail calls
on his Verizon voicemail, (his stand-along voice mail machine sounds as
though it is working properly) the reason for his inability to detect a
new Verizon voice mail without lifting the receiver sounds related to
his telephone equipment. Either it doesn't have the capacity to detect
telco voicemail, or it does but he doesn't have it configured to do
that. (Maybe he should consult the user's manual for his phone.) By the
way, my Panasonic system was manufactured in 2015 so it's not exactly a
brand new feature. For reference, I'm using a phone in the Panasonic
KX-TGE4** series. I believe that some of their phones in the KX-TGE3**
series have the same feature. I'm sure the feature can be found in
other brands of home cordless phone systems.

[snipppppp]

Our phones here at home, which are attached to
a (pseudo) landline, do, indeed, have a visual
indication that there's "central office" v-mail
waiting for us.

This is courtesy of the standardized notification
between most phone service providers (not all,
especially not all VOIP types) and... just about
all of the better quality/featured "wireless"
phone sets. [a]

In our case it's one of the many Panasonic DECT systems,
which sell for $100 to $200 depending on the features
of the base and how many handsets you get.

(higher prices, too...)

So yes, there's a light on the handsets which blinks
when theirs v-mail waiting at the central server.

(Normally we have the cordless phone's own v-mail
shut OFF and just use the one at the central office).

Note that when we first got similar systems way,way,
back the central office v-mail did NOT activate
the phone's blinkenlicht. But that changed very
roughly 10 years ago.

[a] The "base" phone, which is directly plugged into
the (pseudo) landline wire, also lights up.

--
__________________________________________________ ___
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key

[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

In alt.home.repair, on Tue, 05 Jan 2021 09:44:45 -0500,
wrote:

On Tue, 05 Jan 21 13:37:29 UTC, micky wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Tue, 5 Jan 2021 08:07:32 -0500, Ed Pawlowski
wrote:

On 1/5/2021 9:20 AM, micky wrote:
I have a home phone, wired, but supplied by Verizon Fios.

How can I know if I have voicemail waiting without picking up the phone?

Like a light or a beeper.

I'm willing to buy something.

When I google, everything is about cell phones.

I have a phone machine, and when a message is left there a light flashes
on every phone in the house, plus the base phone beeps once in a while.
That's just fine.

But sometimes for reasons I don't understand**, the voicemail answers
the phone before the machine does. Today there were 5 such messages
including my brother who called Sunday, but it was too late on Monday to
call him back, so it will take me two days. I don't want a repeat of
that. (The other 4 were silence.)

**I've set the ring count before anssering on the voice mail to 6, the
maximum, and on the phone machine to 4, so the machine should always
answer first. Unless the storage is full but it never is, and I
wouldn't be complaining if it were. Actually it's nice that voicemail
backs up the machine -- at least I think it would, maybe, I think --
after it takes about 30 messages. At the least it's nice that voicemail
will take messages when I'm on the phone and I don't respond to
call-waiting, which of course is usually spammers, so I don't even look.

I talked to Verizon and there is no way I myself can turn off my voice
mail. They will do it but then I have to call again, to turn it back on
when I go out of town. Before the virus I planned to go out of town
last March,

I'm confused. You have both a machine and Verizon voice mail? Sounds
like they are possibly working against each other.

Yes, I have both, but they're not working against each other. Normally
the phone machine answers. Sometimes the voicemail does a) when the
phone is accidentally off the hook, which has happened, b) when I'm on
the phone, which has happened a lot, and c) sometimes when I can't
account for it, but eventually I'll figure that out.

I'd try to live with
just one.

Let's assume I chose voicemail. How can I know if I have a voicemail
message waiting without picking up the phone? Is there a gizmo I can
buy, or some other way?

I use the machine and if I'm out of town, tough, you wait
until I get back.

The problem is when I *am* home and I get a voicemail but don't know
I"ve gotten it, because I haven't used the home phone to make a call.

I am guessing if you are on the phone at the time it goes to the FiOS
voice mail. I never set up the telco voice mail on my phone so I don't
have that problem. I have call waiting and 9 other features I seldom
use as part of the bundle. The call waiting gives me a little chirp if

It used to give a little chirp, but since FIOS, it plays maybe 3 chirps
and the screen on the phone lights up with the other number.

Today the screen gave the last name of one of my best friends, but not
the right phone number. And no message left.

I am on the phone and a call comes in. I can switch to the other party
or conference us all in together. Usually is it Rachel from Card

I despise most of those callers but Rachel said she was very lonely
because so many people dislike her. I commiserated and she agreed to go
out with me next time she's in Baltimore, or next time I'm in.....wait,
she was about to tell me where she lived when she got another call.
That's okay. I'd rather get togeher here.

Services or "Apple/Microsoft support" tho. They never leave a message.

I have her whatsapp number.

I have to go now. Soha G. Ryyash is calling.

On Tue, 5 Jan 2021 08:07:32 -0500, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On 1/5/2021 9:20 AM, micky wrote:
I have a home phone, wired, but supplied by Verizon Fios.

How can I know if I have voicemail waiting without picking up the phone?

Like a light or a beeper.

I'm willing to buy something.

When I google, everything is about cell phones.

I have a phone machine, and when a message is left there a light flashes
on every phone in the house, plus the base phone beeps once in a while.
That's just fine.

But sometimes for reasons I don't understand**, the voicemail answers
the phone before the machine does. Today there were 5 such messages
including my brother who called Sunday, but it was too late on Monday to
call him back, so it will take me two days. I don't want a repeat of
that. (The other 4 were silence.)

**I've set the ring count before anssering on the voice mail to 6, the
maximum, and on the phone machine to 4, so the machine should always
answer first. Unless the storage is full but it never is, and I
wouldn't be complaining if it were. Actually it's nice that voicemail
backs up the machine -- at least I think it would, maybe, I think --
after it takes about 30 messages. At the least it's nice that voicemail
will take messages when I'm on the phone and I don't respond to
call-waiting, which of course is usually spammers, so I don't even look.

I talked to Verizon and there is no way I myself can turn off my voice
mail. They will do it but then I have to call again, to turn it back on
when I go out of town. Before the virus I planned to go out of town
last March,

I'm confused. You have both a machine and Verizon voice mail? Sounds
like they are possibly working against each other. I'd try to live with
just one. I use the machine and if I'm out of town, tough, you wait
until I get back.
I use the machine and call in remote when out of town. All machines
should have a remote retrieval option

On Tue, 05 Jan 2021 09:44:45 -0500, posted for all of us to
digest...


On Tue, 05 Jan 21 13:37:29 UTC, micky wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Tue, 5 Jan 2021 08:07:32 -0500, Ed Pawlowski
wrote:

On 1/5/2021 9:20 AM, micky wrote:
I have a home phone, wired, but supplied by Verizon Fios.

How can I know if I have voicemail waiting without picking up the phone?

Like a light or a beeper.

I'm willing to buy something.

When I google, everything is about cell phones.

I have a phone machine, and when a message is left there a light flashes
on every phone in the house, plus the base phone beeps once in a while.
That's just fine.

But sometimes for reasons I don't understand**, the voicemail answers
the phone before the machine does. Today there were 5 such messages
including my brother who called Sunday, but it was too late on Monday to
call him back, so it will take me two days. I don't want a repeat of
that. (The other 4 were silence.)

**I've set the ring count before anssering on the voice mail to 6, the
maximum, and on the phone machine to 4, so the machine should always
answer first. Unless the storage is full but it never is, and I
wouldn't be complaining if it were. Actually it's nice that voicemail
backs up the machine -- at least I think it would, maybe, I think --
after it takes about 30 messages. At the least it's nice that voicemail
will take messages when I'm on the phone and I don't respond to
call-waiting, which of course is usually spammers, so I don't even look.

I talked to Verizon and there is no way I myself can turn off my voice
mail. They will do it but then I have to call again, to turn it back on
when I go out of town. Before the virus I planned to go out of town
last March,

I'm confused. You have both a machine and Verizon voice mail? Sounds
like they are possibly working against each other.

Yes, I have both, but they're not working against each other. Normally
the phone machine answers. Sometimes the voicemail does a) when the
phone is accidentally off the hook, which has happened, b) when I'm on
the phone, which has happened a lot, and c) sometimes when I can't
account for it, but eventually I'll figure that out.

I'd try to live with
just one.

Let's assume I chose voicemail. How can I know if I have a voicemail
message waiting without picking up the phone? Is there a gizmo I can
buy, or some other way?

I use the machine and if I'm out of town, tough, you wait
until I get back.

The problem is when I *am* home and I get a voicemail but don't know
I"ve gotten it, because I haven't used the home phone to make a call.

I am guessing if you are on the phone at the time it goes to the FiOS
voice mail. I never set up the telco voice mail on my phone so I don't
have that problem. I have call waiting and 9 other features I seldom
use as part of the bundle. The call waiting gives me a little chirp if
I am on the phone and a call comes in. I can switch to the other party
or conference us all in together. Usually is it Rachel from Card
Services or "Apple/Microsoft support" tho. They never leave a message.

You already extended your car warranty? :-)

--
Tekkie

On Thu, 7 Jan 2021 16:00:45 -0500, Tekkie© wrote:


On Tue, 05 Jan 2021 09:44:45 -0500, posted for all of us to
digest...


On Tue, 05 Jan 21 13:37:29 UTC, micky wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Tue, 5 Jan 2021 08:07:32 -0500, Ed Pawlowski
wrote:

On 1/5/2021 9:20 AM, micky wrote:
I have a home phone, wired, but supplied by Verizon Fios.

How can I know if I have voicemail waiting without picking up the phone?

Like a light or a beeper.

I'm willing to buy something.

When I google, everything is about cell phones.

I have a phone machine, and when a message is left there a light flashes
on every phone in the house, plus the base phone beeps once in a while.
That's just fine.

But sometimes for reasons I don't understand**, the voicemail answers
the phone before the machine does. Today there were 5 such messages
including my brother who called Sunday, but it was too late on Monday to
call him back, so it will take me two days. I don't want a repeat of
that. (The other 4 were silence.)

**I've set the ring count before anssering on the voice mail to 6, the
maximum, and on the phone machine to 4, so the machine should always
answer first. Unless the storage is full but it never is, and I
wouldn't be complaining if it were. Actually it's nice that voicemail
backs up the machine -- at least I think it would, maybe, I think --
after it takes about 30 messages. At the least it's nice that voicemail
will take messages when I'm on the phone and I don't respond to
call-waiting, which of course is usually spammers, so I don't even look.

I talked to Verizon and there is no way I myself can turn off my voice
mail. They will do it but then I have to call again, to turn it back on
when I go out of town. Before the virus I planned to go out of town
last March,

I'm confused. You have both a machine and Verizon voice mail? Sounds
like they are possibly working against each other.

Yes, I have both, but they're not working against each other. Normally
the phone machine answers. Sometimes the voicemail does a) when the
phone is accidentally off the hook, which has happened, b) when I'm on
the phone, which has happened a lot, and c) sometimes when I can't
account for it, but eventually I'll figure that out.

I'd try to live with
just one.

Let's assume I chose voicemail. How can I know if I have a voicemail
message waiting without picking up the phone? Is there a gizmo I can
buy, or some other way?

I use the machine and if I'm out of town, tough, you wait
until I get back.

The problem is when I *am* home and I get a voicemail but don't know
I"ve gotten it, because I haven't used the home phone to make a call.

I am guessing if you are on the phone at the time it goes to the FiOS
voice mail. I never set up the telco voice mail on my phone so I don't
have that problem. I have call waiting and 9 other features I seldom
use as part of the bundle. The call waiting gives me a little chirp if
I am on the phone and a call comes in. I can switch to the other party
or conference us all in together. Usually is it Rachel from Card
Services or "Apple/Microsoft support" tho. They never leave a message.

You already extended your car warranty? :-)

For some reason, when I say I am very interested in an extended
warranty on my 97 Honda, they hang up.