[asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception

[Steve Totaro]

> >>
> >
> > Let me further qualify my results.  This was done with whatever the
> > current stable versions of Asterisk, Hylafax, and IAXmodem were
> > available in January of this year.  The faxes were outbound.  PDFs
put
> > into a Samba share and a cron job moving them over to the Hylafax
> > monitored directory.
> >
> 
> for my application I am more concerned with inbound working, outbound
> is just a bonus if it works. one of the big points is when you have a
> distributed workforce conventional fax machines don't work out since
> you get a paper result in one place and the recipient in another.
> Hylafax output can easily be redirected from a general delivery
> mailbox, or people can have their own fax extensions or DID to
> automate delivery even more. In my application voip itself really
> doesn't factor in either, the fax setup is on the same box the analog
> lines physically terminate at.
> 
> I have had pretty good luck with an old slow machine, ancient
> asterisk, low quality channel bank, and a physical fax modem on the
> same box as asterisk running hylafax, analog line in - pbx - analog
> line out - faxmodem, occasionally I get errors on faxes, and rarely
> someone can't get a fax through, but giving them the extension of a
> physical fax machine always works. So I am not convinced that problem
> is purely to blame on anything other than the far end station.
> 
> What I would like to eliminate is the fxs port and physical faxmodem
> from the setup and use iaxmodem instead (frees up a port, plus doesn't
> need faxmodem at all, and less complicated) it sounds like this sort
> of configuration works pretty well according to most of the posters. I
> know there are some issues with fax autodetection, but normally the
> sender fax is programmed to retry a few times, and failing that, your
> answer message could include a message to hit start on the fax machine
> if it does not start automatically, or dial an extension manually to
> start it.
> 
> another thing I like to do is if I scribble something down on a piece
> of paper, I just drop it in the fax machine and send it to the fax
> modem by calling its extension, I get a nicely scanned pdf in the mail
> that I can then forward to  anyone without knowing their fax number or
> paying for a fax call, great for emailing diagrams of things without
> taking the time to draw them on the computer.

Yes, I suppose the thread title is "reception".  

I am pretty sure the PDF decoding or encoding is what eats up the
processor cycles, tiff would probably be much less processing.  

The poor man's scanner option is also pretty nice.  Depending on the fax
machine, it could be on par with a Panafax which is a costly little and
awesome piece of equipment.

Thanks,
Steve