[Asterisk-Users] Re: Making Asterisk NOT Pickup a Line when Ringing?

[Rich Adamson]

> > > Hi,
> > > What do I need to do to get asterisk to NOT pickup a Zap channel when
> > > it rings?  The channel in question is used for outbound calls only,
> > > and all incoming calls are answered by an analog phone elsewhere in
> > > the building that does not run through asterisk... so.. either make it
> > > not answer.. or make it delay for like 90 seconds.. I've tried
> > > wait's.. but it still seems to pickup the channel (even without an
> > > answer!)
> > 
> > Simply not defining the channel in zaptel/zapata (either or both, but  
> > primarily zapata) should do it. If Asterisk doesn't know about the  
> > channel, then it won't know it's ringing.
> 
> But then it won't be able to make outbound calls on it!

Nonsense. Works like a charm.

As posted in the last couple of days, in the zapata.conf for the particular
channel that you don't want * to answer, simply define it's context as
 context=nowhere
or whatever else is self-descriptive to you.

Then to dial on that channel, simply Dial(Zap/1... or whatever channel
number it happens to be. The dial statment has nothing to do with the
incoming context definition.

Also, for those that have spouses that threaten to cut off something
of value if you disturb their antiquated analog answering machine,
the incoming zapata.conf entry for that channel "can" have a valid
context=incoming-line defined, and in extensions.conf that context
can have something like:
[inbound-line]
 exten => s,1,NoOp,${CALLERID}
 exten => s,2,Dial(SIP/1234,15)
Since the 15 seconds (in this case) is longer then what it takes for
the answering machine to pick up, asterisk never answers the call
unless someone picks up the SIP/1234 phone. (The 15 seconds in this
example isn't actually needed unless you really want to do something
within asterisk should the answering machine fail. Then you could
add code to send the call to * voicemail, etc. No problem.

The exact same approach can be use for analog fax machines (which
was the start of these postings a couple of days ago). In that case,
the analog fax machine answers the call; but, asterisk can still use
the same analog line for outgoing calls. It just can't detect if the
line is actually being used by the fax machine for outgoing fax calls.
(Eg, asterisk doesn't wait for dialtone and can't detect speech or
fax tones on the analog line before asterisk dials. The TDM card has
the capability of determining whether the line is in use, but asterisk
does not have the code to support the TDM card function at this time.)