Distinguishing voice calls from incoming faxes

July 12, 2008 10:17 AM

I have two telephone lines going into my office. If I'm on the first line, the second line rings. I also have a fax connected to the second line. How do I keep the fax from picking up regular phone calls, but make sure it picks up incoming faxes?

More details: the phone is this RCA Visys with answering machine. The fax is a Xerox 6115 multifunction. The line coming into the phone is a single wire "line 1 / line 2" and the line going into the fax is line 2 only. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

posted by letitrain to technology (6 comments total)

Most fax machines have a switch or software set up setting for "auto" or "delayed" answer. In this mode, they actually go off hook to all incoming calls, and listen for the warble of a modem trying to initiate a connection, to which they will begin with their own modem response within 1/2 a second. But if they don't hear that, they will, instead, simulate a ring tone, for additional devices, like answering machines, that you have connected "downstream" from the fax machine. If they don't sense a pickup by your answering machine within 4 or 5 rings, then they start sending warble modem tones of their own, as a signal to a manual fax operator on the other end of the call that they are ready to connect under manual control, and so to push the Start button on their end. Consult your manual for auto answer settings.

If your Xerox is one of the few machines that doesn't include this functionality, you might need to add something like a Radio Shack AFX-300 Fax/Data Switch to your setup, to do this for you.
posted by paulsc at 10:40 AM on July 12, 2008

You can also get a distinctive ring number for the fax line. This is called a number of things, including "Ring Master" at Bellsouth.

It gives you two different numbers for the same physical line, one of which rings normally, and one of which has a different ring, like a long-short-long ring. Fax machines sometimes have the ability to discriminate for their own distinctive ring, but if not, you can get an external box, such as the fax/data switch paulsc mentions that will do it for you.

Benefit here is that you have the equivalent of three lines, but only pay for two. I am in VT, and the cost of a second ring is $6/month per line.

Last alternative, of course, is to set you fax to manual during the times you will be in the office.
posted by FauxScot at 10:51 AM on July 12, 2008

"... The line coming into the phone is a single wire "line 1 / line 2" and the line going into the fax is line 2 only. ..."

Oops! Meant to add that if you feed the fax machine from your 2 line phone set, auto answer on the fax can't work to automatically intercept fax calls, and send the rest to answering machine. The fax machine has to be first in the device chain, with the TAD (Telephone Answering Device) after that, in order for the fax to do it's "modem listen/fake more ring tones" schtick, as I described above.

Page 11 of the manual for your RCA phone set suggests connecting your fax machine to the data port of the phone, and setting the data port switch on the phone for line 2. That effectively routes the second phone line directly to the fax machine, but probably eliminates the answering machine function in the phone from working for line 2. But it's probably the best you can do, with the equipment you've got. You could, of course, put a second TAD (answering machine) down line from the fax, set the fax for auto answer, and have the ability to automatically have faxes answered, and to get voice messages simultaneously on both lines. The downside of that would be that if you wanted to check messages remotely, you'd have two answering machines on separate numbers to check.
posted by paulsc at 11:15 AM on July 12, 2008

If I'm on the first line, the second line rings.

There's the problem. Call the phone company and have them set it up so the caller gets diverted to voice mail if you're on the first line. Then use the second line only for faxes.
posted by kindall at 1:03 PM on July 12, 2008

kindall: ...set it up so the caller gets diverted to voice mail if you're on the first line. Then use the second line only for faxes.

No, I need two lines minimum and I don't want to pay for a dedicated fax line if I can help it (I rarely use it). The phone company was under the impression it would just work with most new fax machines.

I'm going to try paulsc's suggestion to connect the fax to the data port and I'll report back.
posted by letitrain at 4:24 PM on July 12, 2008

This is not a solution to your problem, but an alternative: if you rarely use your fax, you might consider an online fax service. I use MaxEmail.com, but there are other services too. (I have no connection to MaxEmail.com other than as a satisfied customer.) Incoming faxes are converted to PDFs and emailed to me, and I can send faxes online or via email. Between MaxEmail and my Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner, I never have to drag my fax machine out of the closet.
posted by brianogilvie at 6:58 PM on July 12, 2008