house phone & fax number

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Guest

Hi,

I have a separate line and phone number for faxes. I have never been able
to get this faxing to work through the computer. Now, all of a sudden, phone
calls coming through to my house phone are being pick-up by the fax through
xp. How do I fix this and to set this up so the fax only picks up when the
fax number is called?

Thanks
 
I hope I am answering this the right way. I am not computer/technical savy.
It is actually, physically, one line. When I physically had a fax machine, I
never had a problem. Is there any way to set up the computer fax to only
pick up when the fax number is called and to remain off when the house number
is called?
 
carol said:
I hope I am answering this the right way. I am not computer/technical savy.
It is actually, physically, one line. When I physically had a fax machine, I
never had a problem. Is there any way to set up the computer fax to only
pick up when the fax number is called and to remain off when the house number
is called?

:
Click to expand...

Carol
The short answer to your question is, No.

One method that the phone company uses when there are two different
phone numbers on a single physical line is called "distinctive ring."
That is, the ring pattern will be different depending on which phone
number is being called. Lots of equipment, including some stand-alone
fax machines, can detect these patterns and decide whether to answer or
not. Windows XP fax service can not do this.

Windows XP fax service will answer EVERY incoming phone call (or none).
It can not determine which calls are voice and which are fax.

If you simply want to turn it off: Start > Printers and Faxes > right
click on the Fax icon and select "Properties" > click on "Devices" tab
and then click on "Properties" button > UNcheck the box next to "enable
device to receive"

If you want to try to use Windows fax service (and there are no
guarantees that you will be able to get it to work), you will have to
buy an extra piece of equipment to automatically switch the incoming
call to the proper recipient (e.g., phone, fax modem, data modem). See,
e.g., http://faxswitch.com/ and
http://www.command-comm.com/fax_switch/fax_switch.html
or, http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=fax+switch&btnG=Google+Search

Note that with some of these devices, you could get rid of your extra
telephone line. The device answers all incoming calls and connects to
the fax modem if it "hears" a fax connect tone.
 
A dedicated fax machine has the ability to differentiate between a fax
handshake and voice call.. XP Fax can't do that.. to use a computer as a Fax
machine, it is best done on a dedicated line not shared with voice calls..
 
Thank you, Mike for your help with this. I completely understand now. I
have had at least 3 fax machines in the past few years, each of them broken
by my special needs son. I no longer have any fax machine and I thought
using the fax through the computer would be my solution.

Thanks again.
 
carol said:
Thank you, Mike for your help with this. I completely understand now. I
have had at least 3 fax machines in the past few years, each of them
broken
by my special needs son. I no longer have any fax machine and I thought
using the fax through the computer would be my solution.

Thanks again.
Click to expand...
The only way you could limp along is with manual receive. You would have
the people who want to fax something to you to call in advance telling you
when they will be faxing. Many fax modems have caller ID. When the fax
balloon pops up on the computer with the right caller ID, click on the
balloon to receive the fax.
 
If by "one line" and "fax number is called" you mean you have one phone
line, but two phone numbers set up with Distinctive Ring, there are some
hardware devices that can help:

http://www.youcansave.com/switchboard.html
Emerson Switchboard
http://www.command-comm.com/phone_line_products.html
ComSwitch®

Hal
--
Hal Hostetler, CPBE -- (e-mail address removed)
Senior Engineer/MIS -- MS MVP-Print/Imaging -- WA7BGX
http://www.kvoa.com -- "When News breaks, we fix it!"
KVOA Television, Tucson, AZ. NBC Channel 4
Still Cadillacin' - www.badnewsbluesband.com
 
Try this fantastic little piece of software. It is a basic application that
mimics a fax machine. It supports "distinctive ring" so you could set up two
numbers on the same line, one for your fax machine and one for phone calls.
It also allows you to set up the number of times the phone should ring before
the fax machine picks up the call.

http://www.nicocuppen.com/product.php?prodinfoID=3&prodID=2

Another alternative is to subscribe to a fax-to-email service. The biggest
is efax.com. They offer a fulll fax/web/email integration service but are
expensive. Their "free" service limits you to receiving 20 pages a month and
deluges you with spam.

There are others that offer a free recieve only service. I am in the UK and
use this lot:
http://www.inweb.co.uk/ip_fax2email.html
I am sure similar services are available elsewhere if you Google for "fax to
email".

My personal solution, therefore, is to send faxes using the Nico Cuppen "fax
machine" software and receive them using my fax-to-email service.
 
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