[Asterisk-Users] VM low volume - testers needed

[Rich Adamson]

For those that have experienced low VM recording volumes when using
a Digium TDM04b (or similar analog pstn card), a work around has been
committed to cvs-head. Need some folks to test it; it doesn't seem 
to work for me, but need some feedback from others to ensure the
work around is actually functioning. (The work around relates back
to bug #2023, and was committed around Thursday or Friday last week.)

The work around involves adding g(6) to an exten definition like this:
 exten => 3000,1,Dial(SIP/3000,15,r)
 exten => 3000,2,Voicemail(3000|ug(6))
 exten => 3000,102,Voicemail(3000|bg(6))
 exten => 3000,103,Hangup

The g(6) adds a 6 db gain for zap calls that end up recording a Voicemail
message. 

"show application voicemail" indicates:
[Synopsis]
Leave a voicemail message
[Description]
  VoiceMail(mailbox[@context][&mailbox[@context]][...][|options]):  Leavesvoicem
ail for a given mailbox (must be configured in voicemail.conf).
 If the options contain: 
* 's'    instructions for leaving the message will be skipped.
* 'u'    the "unavailable" greeting will be played.
* 'b'    the "busy" greeting will be played.
* 'g(#)' the specified amount of gain will be requested during message
         recording (units are whole-number decibels (dB))

In my case, the asterisk box is located about 7db from the central 
office. As noted in bug 2023 (and 2022), calls from an outside pstn
line coming into asterisk incure a 7db pstn loss (which can't be adjusted
for with rxgain and txgain as changing those values to something
reasonable generates echo).  Retrieving that VM message from an outside
location creates another 7db loss (now -14db down in total), making it 
very difficult (if not impossible) to hear the message. (And, yes I've 
gone through all the recommendations with wav vs gsm files, etc.)

The work around "only" kicks in if the call comes from a zap channel 
and ends up in voicemail, adding a 6db gain to that recorded message. 
No other channel types are impacted by this new parameter.

Could others that have this same issue give the above a try to see
if it impacts your VM recordings?  (Kevin tested it on his development
workstation and it seemed to work, but he's at VON right now and 
can't do much testing. Both of us are looking for a little help with
the testing effort.)

Post results to the -user list please.

Rich