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Music on hold-- Home made coupler 1

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Jd925

Technical User
Jul 16, 2003
195
US
Hi all I had to buy on ebay a 40 dollar music coupler when somone here told me to connect an rj11 jack to a headphone plug. It works great.. Save a few bucks Dont buy it build it. I have no volume problems and its been working fine for a few days.
 
Having done this several times, over several years, I can assure you, you were lucky.

Not all Radios have the output to make this work the way you describe.

If the output is too hot, the attenuation provided by the music coupler is required.

If not, you can get away with it, fine.

Actually, on my own personal system, I have it connected the way you describe. (WITH THE STEREO SET TO MONO OUTPUT !! !)

However, on one I went on last week, it would never have been able to be used WITHOUT the coupler and its ATTENUATION capabilities.

Again, not all music sources are the same.

So be careful in advising everyone to just "BUILD YOUR OWN".

 
You can make Your own cable adapter cheap! It works, I did one for Merlin II, Magix.
First of all You will need a T/R line matching ( 600 ohm balanced ) transformer. Free!, get them from old single line answering machines. You will need a RJ11 cable , and a RCA cable, which I'm sure You have laying around. Just make sure th 600 ohn side of the transformer goes to RJ11 jack. Look at pic on link, have fun, Andre

 
Andre,

Can you provide a schematic as well?

Don't you have problems with volume control?

What about Avaya warrantied systems?
 
Merlin Man

As long as the Music source has volumle conrol, and is low power ( ie. 0.2-2 watts ), volume is ok, and clear. I would not recomend it on an avaya warrantied system.
I would only recomend this as temporay solution on a newer system, or a low buget install, like someone who bought a used system, and has very low budget for an install. You know those installs were more wire, jacks, and misc. items are needed, and You have to eat the cost.
Plus there some of us Who like to build things, and/or take them apart.

Andre
 
" like to build things, and/or take them apart. "

Of course.

And just as true, what you said about low budget, 2nd hand systems, that all the end user wants is something that works.

Been there, done that, still doing that....

I just wanted to bring the point up....
 
I've been making Music on Hold adapters since the days of the old 1A2 Key systems. (Replace the wire-wound terminating resistor with a 600-ohm transformer.)

Radio Shack carries 600 ohm to 8 ohm transmitters; most radios and portable CD players will work fine feeding into an 8 ohm transformer, and have volume controls to adjust the level correctly. You can buy the phone line cord, the audio cord, a nice small aluminum box to mount the transformer, and so forth for about $15, though perhaps you have most of this in your junk drawer anyway.

What's lame is not having a standard 8-ohm MOH input on some of the Merlin processors. The good-old Merlin Plus (820D) had it. Partner has it. Many competitive small systems have it. Why use an expensive trunk port for MOH? At least with Magix 3, there's the excuse that you can have multiple MOH ports for different groups.

(Someday, callers will want to have selectable music on hold. "Press 1 for news. 2 for elevator music. 3 for jazz.")
 
Merlin Plus - Yes it had it, It also got AT&T a big fat Lawsuit from the Music Industry, just over that jack.
 
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