[Asterisk-Users] offtopic - channel banks

[Ilia Mirkin]

While I understand everything that you have said, I'm still a little
confused. Yes - I have what looks like a centronics connector on the
back. So, I can do "t100p with e&m signalling" <-> "act-1241 e&m card"
<-> what? Namely, if the E&M card deals with the T1 end of the channel,
how do I get that to a real phone? Will it "just work" if I plug an
analog phone onto the correct pair coming out of the connector in the
back? If not, what is the output of the E&M card? (and, more
importantly, what would I need to do to hook it up to an analog phone?)

Thanks for clearing things up.

---
Ilia Mirkin
imirkin at mit.edu

On Sun, 2004-09-05 at 04:31, Steven Critchfield wrote:
> On Sun, 2004-09-05 at 03:10, Ilia Mirkin wrote:
> > hi,
> > 
> > i have some newbie questions about channel banks. i have an adtran
> > act-1241 sitting around. it accepts D4 modules, and it contains a number
> > of e&m cards.
> > 
> > first of all, how does this thing work? a t1 contains 24 channels, and i
> > noticed that the channel bank has space for 24 cards. what do these
> > cards do? what are their outputs? the ones that are in there have some
> > outputs on the front marked "test", but nothing else. there are a number
> > of wires coming out the back (48, if i had to guess), and it has a few
> > ports on the front which seem to be able to take in a T1. am i correct
> > in understanding that it is the card in the bank that determines the
> > signalling style, and not the t1? as such, is there no way that i could
> > use it in its current configuration to have it talk with analog phones
> > (i.e. something like t100p -> act-1241 with e&m cards -> phone)? i'm a
> > bit unclear on the different signalling types, and their
> > intercompatibilities.
> > 
> > if anyone could shed any light into this, i would very much appreciate
> > it.
> 
> Think of the T1 as 24 digital digital pathways. The coding of each
> pathway must be compatible on each end. With E&M cards, you signal with
> E&M and the line will work. The cards plug into a backplane where the
> controller routes the digital signal to the card and then optionally
> hook up the output from the card to a connector that consolidates many
> lines. Look for something that looks like an older 50 pin scsi D
> connector. 
> 
> If there is 2 RJ45 jacks on the front, and 2 50 pin D connectors on the
> back, then it is likely that each card controlls 2 lines each. If there
> is only 1 50 pin connector, then there is only 24 channels.
> 
> Hope that helps.