magic jack and POTS Codec

[jpaul]

Anyone ever try a magicjack and a POTS codec? It is easier to find WIFI than a standard phone line. Before I spend $39.95 I'm guessing someone else tried it.

thanks

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Nope. Won't work. Voip uses some pretty nasty comression vocoding that will drive your pots codecs totally nuts.

 

[jpaul]

Thought it would be worth a try. But if it was that easy to turn a Blue Box into an Access I'm sure someone else would have tried it. Thanks again.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Skype bro... That's the way to get it done on the cheap. Just set up a mix-minus for your computer at the station and use a laptop or something like that in the field. Those little Asus Aspire Ones or some other netbook would work great. I have mine in a pistol case. It fits nicely in there. If you want a pro interface, the Lexcon Alpha with a dynamic mic works fine, or mabye a USB microphone. Don't laugh too hard, but actually some of those "Rock Band" microphones that are made by Creative Labs for the Rock Band game works pretty good if you can find one at a thrift store or the flea market.

 

[firepoint525]

Anyone know how to get a fax machine working with a magic jack? I haven't been able to send faxes on my fax machine using a magic jack. The fax machine does work, and the magic jack works, as well.

 

[OttoM]

Anyone know how to get a fax machine working with a magic jack? I haven't been able to send faxes on my fax machine using a magic jack. The fax machine does work, and the magic jack works, as well.

That dog ain't gonna hunt. Google can direct you to the pages and pages of forum discussions on how to get MJ to work with faxes and it usually ends up with the user giving up.

Sometimes it works by throttling your fax machine baud rate to a max of 4800 but that's hit and miss as well (that's been personal experience).

 

[firepoint525]

I'll hit their online chat line and see if anyone there can help me.

 

[techie2]

Anyone know how to get a fax machine working with a magic jack? I haven't been able to send faxes on my fax machine using a magic jack. The fax machine does work, and the magic jack works, as well.

It won't work, for the same reason that a POTS codec won't work on MagicJack or most other VoIP devices.

 

[firepoint525]

Anyone know how to get a fax machine working with a magic jack? I haven't been able to send faxes on my fax machine using a magic jack. The fax machine does work, and the magic jack works, as well.

It won't work, for the same reason that a POTS codec won't work on MagicJack or most other VoIP devices.

I have been able to use my fax machine over a Vonage line (all I've ever used with my fax machine), but I downgraded to Magic Jack to save some $$$$.

My computer repairman told me that USB jacks at the front of my computer don't have as much power as the ones in the back, so I tried that, too. No luck there, either.

 

[RealityCheckr]

Get what you pay for....

Some VOIP systems can be programmed to use G.711 telephone codec at 64 kbps before packetization. IN that case it will use MORE bandwidth than a normal phone call that uses 64 kbps period.

Anyone know how to get a fax machine working with a magic jack? I haven't been able to send faxes on my fax machine using a magic jack. The fax machine does work, and the magic jack works, as well.

It won't work, for the same reason that a POTS codec won't work on MagicJack or most other VoIP devices.
I have been able to use my fax machine over a Vonage line (all I've ever used with my fax machine), but I downgraded to Magic Jack to save some $$$$.

My computer repairman told me that USB jacks at the front of my computer don't have as much power as the ones in the back, so I tried that, too. No luck there, either.

 

[OttoM]

My computer repairman told me that USB jacks at the front of my computer don't have as much power as the ones in the back...

That's a gem. Next thing they'll probably tell you is the power in your living room is "cleaner" than that in the garage.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

I may be if there is a noise generating equipment of some sorts going in your garage on one side of the 220 leg (110v hot plugs) and your living room is on the other side of it.

 

[Rock 100.7]

http://www.icall.com

Free 3 minute voip phone calls..

 

[listner1]

Have to throw another vote in there for Skype. Free, and pretty simple. Just used the same mix minus feed that I use to feed our POTS codec.

Our POTS codec is the Comrex Vector. It has a XLR line level in and out. Just made cables to run from that to the mic in on the laptop, and from the headpone output on the laptop to the line in on the comrex vector, which you can switch into "hp" mode so it only feeds the headphones, and dosent go back into the "program".

If you can get GOOD wifi, or wired internet, you'll likely get better quality than that of a POTS codec. We recently got a verizon 3G card to plug into the laptop. I assume upstream isn't real high on those, and the quality from the remote site to the studio did drop some in quality (skype adjusts it's audio bandwidth to match the internet bandwidth) but was otherwise stable and solid. And I guess the downstream is pretty good, as we got perfect quality on the return audio from the studio. Delay is almost identical to that of a POTS codec. We've used it for talkshows, and it's worked just fine.

 

[gunterm]

VoIP can only be used for faxing with T.38 compatible hardware and service Fortunately many of them support this but usually for an additional fee. Your BYOD providers like callcentric do it for free however...

BTW, has anyone tried Ventrilo using SPEEX? I've done some off the air testing with it and seems to work fairly well. SPEEX goes up to 44.1khz in mono and when using Ventrilo you get to set up your own server (like back at the studio) instead of relying on unstable P2P peers like Skype. Sure Skype is easy to set up but you'll pay a price for that when your live broadcast drops on air.