HT800 devices to paging system connectivity

#1

Good Day,

We’re eliminating our router-based FXS and FXO ports and looking for something that can provide SIP connectivity to our existing paging systems: we dont want to do forklift upgrades of the paging systems in multiple facilities.

My questions are:
Can we use the HT800 series ATAs to connect to most paging systems (we have several different flavors)?

Would it support dtmf zone codes for those systems using DTMF to select zone or allpage?

How would you handle a paging system that requires page-port input?

could we use a HT813 for a site that did zoning via separate inputs? how would you ‘all page’?

could you use one port of a HT802 for a site with a single zone (or using DTMF passthrough) and the second port as a nightring port?

I will mention our phone system is a Cisco CUCM 11.5.

If anyone has experience with this type of configuration and/or knows any of the answers to these questions Id love to hear from you.

Thanks!
W

#2

Your questions are a little too broad based for me. You indicate that you have a number of different flavors of paging devices and that is fine. However, unless I know what make/model of the device is, I don’t know what signaling is needed.

For a page port, consider-

Night ringer varies as to what is needed. Some require a closure so a Viking LDB-2 may take the input of a HT to detect ring whereupon when detected the LDB-2 provides the closure to the ringer amp which will then play its embedded ringer type.

Need more info if you want something other than generalities, but yes, some can use an HT of one type or another and others can’t.

#3

Thanks for the response lpneblett!

some examples of paging systems are
pagepac 6 plus
valcom fx2006 and 2001
bogen - some with UTI some without and with TPU 100 ie
at least one with a bogen TAMB2 and DTF 120 fronting a crown amp
and if I havent run across it yet I fully expect to find some viking (zpi-4 ie) gear as well

I kept it general because of the variety of systems we might encounter.
We inherited a lot of different systems, and we dont deal with paging that much so we’re kind of feeling our way through.

We know:
We need to front-end a SIP gateway of some type to avoid forklift upgrade
we would like to standardize on on product family for ease of maintenance.
We will need to support a variety of interfaces:at a rough guess of order of frequency:
FXS (paging system wants to connect to FXO)
page port
FXO (I would expect any system supporting this to support FXS - do you agree?)
Audio line in/out - I would presume we would normally need to front-end the amp in this scenario with with something similar to a UTI

and we will need to support sites with:
Single zone with and without nitering
Multi zone (up to 6) with and without nitering
(I hope most/all systems use DTMF pass-thru for zone select - is that the norm?)

We’ve decided not to cover the background music scenario.

After typing that out to give myself a clearer view, since most of the paging systems probably want to connect to an FXO port (keep me honest here - I constantly confuse myself on whether the paging system is fxs and wants to connect to fxo, or vise-versa), the HT800 series is not what we need since it (I think) is opposite the interface I need (FXS instead of FXO)

Does that sound right or have I confused myself again?
Does Grandstream fit into this scenario at all?

Sorry to write a book but it looked like I needed to provide some additional detail.

thx
w

#4

An HT813 is both FXO and FXS. Bogen UTI is both FXO and FXS so either will work. I did a UTI a few weeks back using Ht802 with a feed going to the station port for page and then the other port to a LDB-2 for ring detect to feed a contact closure for the night ringer.

For the TAMB, I would get a HT813. The spec calls for 90V ring in the TAMB, but as it too supports both FXO & FXS, you could see if the station port will work with the FXS side and if not then the FXO. It is interesting that the UTI works with the FXS but does not have a spec for it with regard to needed ring voltage.

I assume on the Valcom you have something in front of it?

#5

Thanks for the help IPneblett.

We have ordered an HT813 to try in one of the facilities.

K

#6

Hi wolf8963,
Did you have any success with the HT813?. I am currently struggling with a HT801 connected to a TAMB2. Call to HT801/TAMB2 combo answers right away but then the caller is cut-off (hung up on) after 3 seconds of speaking and the paging system sends 2-3 seconds of re-order tone over the speakers. Ugh…

#7

The disconnect is either sent by whatever is connected to the SIP side of the HT. The HT is a converter and will not hang-up on its own unless there is a condition on either side that causes such. As the TAMB2 is playing the tones, then it stands to reason that its trunk timeout condition was not met, so look at the PBX and do a packet capture.,

#8

I suspect the culprit is the Bogen unit since I can use a test set in place of the TAMB2 to answer the call on the back side of the HT801. I can talk & listen to caller uninterrupted for as long as I want. Also, I get no re-order tone when caller hangs up on me. I am stumped because the TAMB2 is setup with NO timers to cut-off call other than detecting a CPC signal.

#9

Hi murphy8228,
We got the unit in, connected, and configured - but then the ceiling fell in in regard to other projects and I havent gotten back to it!

We had completed the initial step of connecting a phone to the HT, and completing a test call or 2 to verify that level of operation and thats where we stopped - but no disconns there so you might be on the right track with the tamb - if you like I can probably grab the setup I have for the HT thus far, and post it.

Good luck and post what you find