I've noticed a growing number of stores using FRS radios. It would make sense to interface (via soundcard/console driver, with the nessacary electrical conversion) a VOX FRS radio to asterisk to allow someone in the office to page/talk with people on the floor or warehouse. You could throw that call (ie, all the radios) into a meetme conference. Then, you could have people in the office either dial that extension and/or have some of them always in that conference on a speaker phone (muted usually). While I haven't tried this (yet!), it does seem like it would be a useful feature. The restriction against PSTN interconnection would be met UNLESS your dialplan allowed outside (PSTN) callers into that conference. You /could/ allow remote softphone users into the conference. cheers, glenn
> I've noticed a growing number of stores using FRS radios. It would make > sense to interface (via soundcard/console driver, with the nessacary > electrical conversion) a VOX FRS radio to asterisk to allow someone in > the office to page/talk with people on the floor or warehouse. You could > throw that call (ie, all the radios) into a meetme conference. Then, you > could have people in the office either dial that extension and/or have > some of them always in that conference on a speaker phone (muted usually).Unless I'm not understanding your comments, the meetme conference isn't needed (assuming all radios are on the same channel). The radios become the meetme for all practical purposes. (When the base radio transmits, all remote radios listen.)> While I haven't tried this (yet!), it does seem like it would be a > useful feature. The restriction against PSTN interconnection would be > met UNLESS your dialplan allowed outside (PSTN) callers into that > conference. You /could/ allow remote softphone users into the conference.
> I've noticed a growing number of stores using FRS radios. It would make > sense to interface (via soundcard/console driver, with the nessacary > electrical conversion) a VOX FRS radio to asterisk to allow someone in > the office to page/talk with people on the floor or warehouse. You could > throw that call (ie, all the radios) into a meetme conference. Then, you > could have people in the office either dial that extension and/or have > some of them always in that conference on a speaker phone (muted usually).Yah I started this thread with this basic requirement & have been trying to track down if this is feasible. So I have been talking with local radio hams. They have brought to my attention some limitations with using a low end FRS/gmrs handset as the base station 1) battery , since this would be in used more than the individual handset but you could rig a direct power supply to it 2) talk time, these low end handset are designed to cut out after a configured period apparently 30-60 secs 3) the actual radio, under continuos use most experts here believe the radios would over heat and die a quick and certain death :) BUT the best suggestion I found was to use a real uhf radio & tune it to the gmrs/FRS frequency and drop its power to the 2 watts like the GMFRS/FRS radios a Motorola cm200/cm300 http://www.motorola.com/cgiss/mobiles/cm300.shtml might work Then I believe you can use the zapata analog telephony adapter to interface to cm200/cm300 via the 9pin adpater and the cm200/300 mic jack and asterisk will interface via app_rpt... I would appreciate anybody more familiar with this technology to vet this config and raise any flag if they see any issues with this ...from a tech pov the legal issue has been raised & I don't really want hear any more about that :(