[Asterisk-Users] Call screening

[Joel Scotkin]

I've set up asterisk with my X100P as a home answering machine.  Works great
so far - answers the phone after 20 seconds, runs the phone tree, emails
voicemail, etc.

However, the one feature traditional answering machines have that I haven't
been able to figure out is how to listen in on the call.  Ideally I could
just route through Console/dsp and hear it on my speakers.  I've tried the
monitoring app, but that only seems to log to files.  I couldn't figure out
any way to set up a meetme conference while still running through the
various stages in answering the call.  Any ideas?

Things I've considered, but maybe didn't drill down far enough:

- Unload chan_oss, and get the monitoring app to just write to /dev/dsp.  Or
maybe to a pipe, which I can then pass through the standard linux "play"
application.  res_listen anyone?

- Figure out meetme for this purpose.

- Three way call to the console?  I couldn't figure this one out either.

Any of these solutions bring up the related question - is there any way to
get Record to hang up automatically if any other (non-asterisk connected)
extension is picked up in the house?  Traditional answering machines detect
this, but I'm not sure how.  The easy workaround is simply to hit the # key
on the local extension to force a hangup.

I'd appreciate any insights (or code!).  Thanks!

Joel