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peter wrote:
On Jul 14, 10:57 pm, Tony
<[email protected]> wrote:
peter
<[email protected]> wrote:
On Jul 14, 12:54 am, Tony
<[email protected]> wrote:
peter
<[email protected]> wrote:
On 13 Jul, 22:36, Tony
<[email protected]> wrote:
peter
<[email protected]> wrote:
I've had a long running saga over multifunction machines. I work from home and only have one line for voice/fax calls. I want a machine that will detect when a call comes in if it is a voice or fax call and either answer the fax or let the phone ring for me to answer. This is very important becase if i'm out of the office I need the machine to either accept faxes or take voice messages. Most machines, including the lexmark X7170 that I'm currently using, either answer everything as a fax (so people can't leave voice messages) or not (in which case you can leave a voice message but can't send a fax).
I rang lexmark and they recommended the X7350, 'though to be honest they weren't very clear. I rang again and got the same assurance, but they weren't exactly clear either, "yes, yes it will do it".
I've just bought the machine, but I can't return it if I use it. The instruction booklet says what I want above is possible, through distinctive rings. Two questions:
a) Will the x7350 do what I want? b) If it is just down to distinctive rings, couldn't I have done this on the x7170?
Sorry to ask this again in a new post but I've bought three other all in ones and had to return each one!!
Peter
You will need to check the x7170 specs to see if it supports distinctive ring, you also need to check that your phone service provider can give you distinctive ring that is the same as the x7170 (or the x7350); distinctive ring is a different sequence of ring tones to your normal sequence. Distinctive ring involves paying for a second telephone number on the same physical line, usually quite cheap. Then the new distinctive ring number will be your FAX number and the original number will not be answered by the FAX. There are altenatives to distinctive ring but in my experience they are unreliable, distinctive ring works provided you check the compatibillity as suggested above and you set the FAX up correctly. Tony MS MVP Printing/Imaging- Hide quoted text -
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I've just looked on the lexmark knowledge base for my current machine, the X7170, regarding coming faxes and I see:
"To receive a fax with an answering machine connected to your All-In- One, set the answering machine to answer incoming calls before the All- In-One does. For example, if you set the answering machine to answer calls after 3 rings,the All-In-One could be set to answer calls after 5 rings. Do the following:
On the control panel, press Mode repeatedly until Fax is highlighted. Press Options until ANSWER FAX WHEN appears. Press + until After 5 rings appears. Then press Select. Make sure the Auto Answer light on the All-In-One is on. When a ring is detected, the answering machine picks up the call. If a fax is detected, the All-In-One receives the fax and disconnects the answering machine. If not, the answering machine completes the call"
This looks like what I've got to do for the X7350, which begs the question: should I just return the X7350 and carry on with the X7170??
Peter
Peter There is plenty of room for confusion when setting up your environment. Clearly a dedicated FAX line is the best solution but at a cost.
Using an answering machine nearly always requires that the answering machine be connected to the EXT socket on the back of the FAX, it will not work correctly if the answering machine is connected directly to the main house telephone wiring. Some FAXs require the answering machine to answer the call first and some require the FAX to answer the call first, it appears that your FAX is the former in which case the FAX "snoops" on the line after the call is answered by the answering machine and detects the FAX tones sent by the remote FAX. The FAX then cuts off the answering machine and takes over the line. The problem with this is that any other telephone devices connected to the house wiring are operating independently and if they answer a call (either automatically or by someone picking up the handset) the FAX never gets the opportunity to see if a FAX is being received. To clarify this, the answering machine must be connected to the EXT socket on the FAX or it cannot work. I have seen this arrangement work well and have also seen cases where it simply doesn't work. If it works you then don't need distinctive ring.
The other way to set up your environment is to use distinctive ring and set the answering machine to answer the call "after" the FAX, in this case the answering machine needs to be connected to the main house wiring and not to the FAX EXT socket. So if you use distinctive ring and set the FAX to answer after say 1 or 2 rings, you simply don't need to worry about whether it is a FAX or not because if the FAX does not answer the call after 2 rings you know it is a voice call and if you are out of the house the answering machine will answer the call after say 4 or however many rings you set it to.
In my experience the people you talk to in the manufacturers call centres (not just Lexmark) know next to nothing about setting up a FAX machine. nThe same sometimes applies to telephone service providers.
There are also devices often called FAX sharing devices, these often do not work well and I avoid them if at all possible but they are supposed to discriminate between a FAX and a voice call and route the call to either the FAX machine or a telephone or answering machine. I told you it was complex but you should be able to get it to work OK if you use one of the above arrangements.
You can, I believe, buy devices that are FAX/Copier/Printer/Scanner/Answering Machines but have not actually seen one but to use one of those you will need to set it up correctly and I am not sure how easy they are to set up.
I hope this helps, feel free to ask more questions and I will try to assist.
Tony MS MVP Printing/Imaging- Hide quoted text -
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"it appears that your FAX is the former in which case the FAX "snoops" on the line after the call is answered by the answering machine and detects the FAX tones sent by the remote FAX. The FAX then cuts off the answering machine and takes over the line" OK, this seems to be the case. Two points:
a) I have a dedicated phone line for working from home, so there isn't a problem with other people answering the phone. b) I have to have a "physical" answering machine, rather than the voicemail service which my phone company provides at present as the fax wouldn't be able to snoop on this?
Peter
Peter According tohttp://
www.amazon.com/Lexmark-X7170-Business-Center-21H0000/dp/B00063... the x7170 supports distinctive ring. In this case using the telephone providers voicemail should not cause a problem. If you check with the telephone company and they can provide distinctive ring, you will need to set the 7170 up so that it looks for distinctive ring. When it recognises that ring it will answer the FAX, if the ring is normal it won't answer. That's the theory and in most cases it works perfectly. You need to make sure your 7170 is set correctly for your country since different countries have different FAX services but I am sure that is already correctly set. You also need to make sure that the FAX is set to answer quickly (when it recognises distinctive ring) since I don't know whether the voicemail service ignores the special ring or not. In other words, set the FAX to answer after (say) 1 or 2 rings and make sure the voicemail is set for (say) 8 rings. That gives you time to answer a voice call before the voicemail cuts in. No, the 7170 (or any other machine) cannot snoop for FAX tones until the call is answered in your premises so cannot snoop the line if you use voicemail but this is not a problem if you use distinctive ring. With distinctive ring the 7170 listens to the ring tones (not FAX tones). There are different distinctive ring patterns in different countries and with different telephone service providers, if your 7170 is set up for your country there should be no problem but you should ask your telephone company what distinctive ring options they can provide and make sure it matches the 7170. An Example of distinctive ring is long-short-long as opposed to the normal ring, in some places the normal ring is short-short and in others it may be a single long ring. If you tell the phone company what model (x7170) you have they should be able to confirm whether they can provide a compatible ring pattern. The way it works (using the suggestions above) is when you get a call, if the 7170 does not answer after 3 rings it is a voice call and if you are not there the voicemail will cut in after 8 rings; if it's a FAX the 7170 should pick up the call after 1 or 2 rings. Note that some telephones do not ring with the pattern sent by the telephone company (many portable phones are in this category) so you may not actually hear the special ring from your telephone but the 7170 will still recognise it. Tony MS MVP Printing/Imaging- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text -
thanks for the advice - when I boought the all-in-one I wasn't told about the need for distinctive rings (luckily I didn't take the printer out of the box) and now I'm going to have to check with my phone provider.
