This is all getting a bit complicated! It seems to me that what I want
is the sort of thing that old people use for dialling out automatically
when they press a panic button. Then, as long as I could pre-define the
destination of the call, all I would need would be some way of remotely
"pressing the button". Could probably even use a timer to do it (say) at
midnight every Saturday night.

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...

http://www.coopersecurity.co.uk/repo...heets/SD1_plus
_Technical_datasheet_MEN-001-0810.pdf

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

http://www.coopersecurity.co.uk/repo...heets/SD2%20Te
chnical%20datasheet%20MEN-002-0810.pdf



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..

http://www.zen.co.uk/home-office/voi...-services.aspx


--
Tony Sayer

In article , John
Rumm scribeth thus
On 05/12/2012 21:48, Roger Mills wrote:
On 05/12/2012 16:23, John Rumm wrote:


Or, possibly see if one could find an old dial in router that had
secure phone back capability - used to be popular in corporate circles -
you would phone it, it would then phone back on a preprogrammed number.


The only problem with that is that it would respond to *all* incoming
calls and potentially make outgoing calls at times when they are
chargeable. Also, it would have to answer before the answering machine
cut in, so no-one would be able to leave a message.

Ideally, I would like something which I could initiate by talking to the
router over the internet.

Well if you want to get posh, a Draytek Vigor 2830 has triple wan
capability,

The V version does.

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


VPN termination and the ability to fall back to POTS modem
dialup if required. Also various VoIP capabilities with POTS
passthrough. (quite a decent router, and 802.11n wifi box as well)


--
Tony Sayer

On Tue, 04 Dec 2012 23:00:30 +0000, just as I was about to take a
herb, Roger Mills disturbed my reverie and
wrote:

can anyone suggest the best way of making calls from the flat without actually
being there?

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?
--

Cheers

DrT
______________________________
We may not be able to prevent the stormy times in
our lives; but we can always choose whether or not
to dance in the puddles (Jewish proverb).

On Thu, 06 Dec 2012 17:09:26 +0000, Roger Mills wrote:

On 06/12/2012 01:08, Bob Eager wrote:
On Wed, 05 Dec 2012 22:48:02 +0000, Andy Burns wrote:

John Rumm wrote:

The router could then be configured to relay incoming calls to a POTS
number of your choice. So in effect you place a phone call that
originates on the PSTN (or mobile networks), gets shifted onto VoIP
by the SIP provider of choice, the router then received that "call"
and is programmed to relay to another POTS line

I like it, so you could make your chargeable calls from home to your
2nd home, which would in turn force the 2nd home to make its
chargeable calls to some fixed number, killing two birds with one
stone ...

Better still, from your mobile (using inclusive minutes), bouncing the
calls to the landline in the 1st home at a time when they aren't
charged.
No other fixed number needed then.



This is all getting a bit complicated! It seems to me that what I want
is the sort of thing that old people use for dialling out automatically
when they press a panic button. Then, as long as I could pre-define the
destination of the call, all I would need would be some way of remotely
"pressing the button". Could probably even use a timer to do it (say) at
midnight every Saturday night.

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!



--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor

On 06/12/2012 20:07, DrTeeth wrote:
On Tue, 04 Dec 2012 23:00:30 +0000, just as I was about to take a
herb, Roger disturbed my reverie and
wrote:

can anyone suggest the best way of making calls from the flat without actually
being there?

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?

I can't somehow see her travelling 130 miles just to use the phone!
--
Cheers,
Roger
____________
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.

On 06/12/2012 21:00, Bob Eager wrote:


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!


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!
--
Cheers,
Roger
____________
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.

On 06/12/2012 17:09, Roger Mills wrote:
On 06/12/2012 01:08, Bob Eager wrote:
On Wed, 05 Dec 2012 22:48:02 +0000, Andy Burns wrote:

John Rumm wrote:

The router could then be configured to relay incoming calls to a POTS
number of your choice. So in effect you place a phone call that
originates on the PSTN (or mobile networks), gets shifted onto VoIP by
the SIP provider of choice, the router then received that "call" and is
programmed to relay to another POTS line

I like it, so you could make your chargeable calls from home to your 2nd
home, which would in turn force the 2nd home to make its chargeable
calls to some fixed number, killing two birds with one stone ...

Better still, from your mobile (using inclusive minutes), bouncing the
calls to the landline in the 1st home at a time when they aren't charged.
No other fixed number needed then.



This is all getting a bit complicated! It seems to me that what I want
is the sort of thing that old people use for dialling out automatically
when they press a panic button. Then, as long as I could pre-define the
destination of the call, all I would need would be some way of remotely
"pressing the button". Could probably even use a timer to do it (say) at
midnight every Saturday night.

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

SteveW

DrTeeth wrote

On Tue, 04 Dec 2012 23:00:30 +0000, just as I was about to take a
herb, Roger Mills disturbed my reverie and
wrote:

can anyone suggest the best way of making calls from the flat
without actually
being there?

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?

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

--
Mike D

On 06 Dec 2012 01:41:40 +0000 (GMT), Theo Markettos
wrote:

In uk.telecom John Rumm wrote:
Well if you want to get posh, a Draytek Vigor 2830 has triple wan
capability, VPN termination and the ability to fall back to POTS modem
dialup if required. Also various VoIP capabilities with POTS
passthrough. (quite a decent router, and 802.11n wifi box as well)

Oooh... I just had an evil idea. Drive a relay from a GPIO pin on your
favourite lump of hardware. Use that relay to do loop-disconnect on the
phone line. Write some software to generate pulses with appropriate timing.
Take the phone off-hook (close the relay), click the relay to pulse dial
your way to an appropriate number, wait for a bit, put the phone on-hook
again.

All you need is a relay and a power transistor to drive it, plus a few
resistors and capacitors to imitate a phone.

Theo

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.
%Profound_observation%

On 5 Dec 2012 22:25:38 GMT, "Michael R N Dolbear"
wrote:

Roger Mills wrote

However, there may be some times when I don't visit the flat for more

than a month - so, with monthly billing, I may sometimes be unable to

make the requisite number of calls.

Last time this came up somebody suggested use of a BT telephone charge
card the charges from which counted as chargable calls.

Has this now vanished ?

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
http://www.payphones.bt.com/callingc...ices/index.htm



--
Graham.
%Profound_observation%

On 09/12/2012 02:55, Graham. wrote:
On 5 Dec 2012 22:25:38 GMT, "Michael R N
wrote:

Last time this came up somebody suggested use of a BT telephone charge
card the charges from which counted as chargable calls.

Has this now vanished ?

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
http://www.payphones.bt.com/callingc...ices/index.htm


So, let's get this right. In order for this to be a solution to my problem:
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!
--
Cheers,
Roger
____________
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.

On 09/12/2012 01:59, Graham. wrote:


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


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

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wired-Voic...em2c62cf0 ea4

I'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?
--
Cheers,
Roger
____________
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.

Roger Mills wrote:

Graham. wrote:

"Michael R N wrote:

somebody suggested use of a BT telephone charge card the charges
from which counted as chargable calls. Has this now vanished ?

I don't know if it's still offered

sign-up page seems to work

https://www1.btwebworld.com/btstreetlifeandpayphones/callingcards/applynow/index.htm

Anyone know whether this would work?

Sounds reasonable

On Sun, 09 Dec 2012 09:55:06 +0000, Roger Mills
wrote:

On 09/12/2012 02:55, Graham. wrote:
On 5 Dec 2012 22:25:38 GMT, "Michael R N
wrote:

Last time this came up somebody suggested use of a BT telephone charge
card the charges from which counted as chargable calls.

Has this now vanished ?

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
http://www.payphones.bt.com/callingc...ices/index.htm


So, let's get this right. In order for this to be a solution to my problem:
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
yes

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
yes

3. These calls would have to count as qualifying calls with respect to
free Caller Display, etc.
My understanding is that they do.


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!

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).

--
Graham.
%Profound_observation%

Bernard Peek writes:

On 04/12/12 23:00, Roger Mills wrote:

So - eventually getting to the point after a long preamble - can anyone
suggest the best way of making calls from the flat without actually
being there?

What you want to do really needs some sort of computer system. The
cheapest way of doing it would be to use a Raspberry Pi costing around
£30 but you can get an awful lot of phone calls for £30. Will it save
you that much?

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

In article ,
John Rumm writes:
On 05/12/2012 12:41, Theo Markettos wrote:
In uk.telecom John Rumm wrote:
Old voice capable modem, and a cheap low power computer like a Pi?

Doesn't even need to do voice, a bog standard modem should do. Dial the

Yup true....

speaking clock (020 70431320 is a geographic version from a uk.telecom
regular) or whatever, the modem negotiation will try and fail, hang up after
30 seconds regardless, job done. As long as the other end answers you've
made a 'chargeable call' even if there's no content.

Depending on your router, it might have an internal serial port you can use
to do talk to the modem if you can run a basic script on it (eg if it runs
Linux and you can get a shell somehow). Or put OpenWRT on a spare router to
do the same thing. Might need some voltage shifters for the serial port (eg
a mobile phone data cable).

Or, possibly see if one could found an old dial in router that had
secure phone back capability - used to be popular in corporate circles -
you would phone it, it would then phone back on a preprogrammed number.

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.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]