[Asterisk-Users] Is it possible to PickupChan / Dial Pickup / Steal a call that has not been answered?

[Rich Adamson]

> I have a home user for asterisk that is not ready to let asterisk manage the 
> entire dialplan ... he's still got an answering machine on the outside line 
> and has this in the [incoming] context for that line:
> 
> exten => s,1,Wait(300)
> exten => s,2,Answer
> exten => s,3,DigitTimeout,5
> exten => s,4,ResponseTimeout,10
> 
> 
> He does this so the answering machine can answer the phone when he's busy or 
> not available, but can still dial out on asterisk.   The Wait(300) prevents 
> asterisk from answering before the answering machine does.
> 
> Crazy, huh?
> 
> Anyway ... he wants to be able to pickup an incoming call during the 
> Wait(300).
> 
> Can this be done?

Sure, but not with the stuff shown above. Just use something like:
 [inbound-home]
 exten => s,1,Dial(SIP/3000,15)

Asterisk won't answer the inbound call unless someone picks up the sip
phone. If no one picks it up, it stops ringing after 15 seconds. The 
bridged answering machine does its thing whenever it wants to.