Calling Features and LATAs [Telecom]

I have one fix for not being able to block call from out of my area. Back in 2000 I went into a Radio Shack store when I was working, they had a table with products that had been returned as well as products that they no longer would make, I found 6 CID boxes that had a block option, when the call came in and you no longer wanted them to call, you added it to the block and the next time, they would get a recording from within the box. It also allowed you to block restricted, private and so on. I sold a couple of them to friends and kept the rest. At this point I'm still only using 1, but if I need to add more then I have up to 40 numbers I can block. It seems to be doing the trick.

I think you misread my post. Blocking calls is not my problem. I have Privacy Manager for that.

That's the thing about R-S. For a very long time they produced things that had advanced features but they didn't know how to sell them.

Does your computer have a dial up modem with callerid detection ? If so this FREE program will block based on callerid, log all calls, and do other stuff.

I agree, years ago when I was in college and the local stores sis their own repairs; this was in the 1960's, I saw some very interesting products that they had, I used to play with some of them. At one time they had an R&D department in Texas that came up with some pretty interesting products, most never made it to retail stores though.

My computer has an internal 56k dial-up modem. But I have no idea what it can do (other than connecting me to a computer and sending/ receiving faxes. Are there any straightforward Hayes style commands I could send to the modem to return caller-ID information?

Along these lines, I plan to get DSL eventually, but I will still connect to one computer via dial up and also will do faxes. Is there any problem having both connected to my machine?

It's probably a long time since the origins of Radio Shack (only later Tandy-Radio Shack) have been discussed on this list. Here are my own recollections:

- in the late 1940's and early to mid 1950's, there was ONE RS store, located in Adams Square in Boston. Originally their emphasis was on ham gear (hence the name); in the '50s they branched out into audio and had one of the earliest component comparator setups.

Sometime later, the Tandy Leather company, also originally a small [mostly mail order, I think] outfit that specialized in leather, grabbed them up (and probably somewhere in the process got swallowed up by the financial sharks), Eventually it became what it is today. Goodbye ham stuff; goodbye components (except in blister packs); leather: what's that??

Actually I have an RS 22-813 DMM and it works for my purposes. I suppose someday I'll plunk the money down for a DMM that interfaces with the computer but that'll be the same time I plunk for a digital scope.

"Julian Thomas" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@gal.iecc.com:

Wasn't it called Uncle Dave's Radio Shack in the good old days?

Mike KG9M

Mike Donnelly wrote in news:Xns9AD172F76470Cmikedonmcnet@

And don't forget when it was known as Allied-Radio Shack. Allied had many hard-to-find parts. I'm not sure if they merged or someone bought the other. This happened somewhere in the '70s. My high school graduation present (1969) from my parents was an Allied stereo. It's still running fine, but it doesn't sound as good as my newer purchaces...sigh.

Rick WA3VTF (ex-WA8OKS)

FWIW, Tandy Corporation inherited the "M&O Subway" which was a short trolley line shuttle from the parking lot to the M&O Bros. Department store. Tandy rennovated the system (which used former DC-Transit streetcars), but I believe the system was eventually retired.

First time I rode on the Tandy "subway" was in 1976. I was showing a friend around Fort Worth last year and showed him where the subway used to run, long since retired.

Allied Electronics is still around:

And I can still get those hard-to-find electronic parts from them.

A computer connected to the internet via DSL has its RJ-11 port free to connect to your telephone wall jack w/ no interference to the DSL, and your telephone wall jack (with suitable lowpass filter) will be free for modem transmission/reception.

For a computer connecting to the internet via a dial-up ISP, the same modem you hope to use for fax is doing the ISP data connection. So the problem is that a modem doing data connection can't send/receive fax, and a modem sending or receiving fax can't do a dial-up connection.

With *two* phone lines, though, and *two* modems, you could probably do both things at once (*if* you could sort out the COM port / IRQ jungle).

Hope this points you to the right track. Cheers,

-- tlvp

You can test your modem to see if it supports call id with the AT+VCID=1 command string.

Not at all. You'll modem will have and and out port (RJ-1 jack). Simply connect your fax machine to the out port. They're usually labeled as line and phone. Of course, if you are using the modem connecting to another computer, the line won't be available to send or receive a fax.