PLEASE BE CAREFUL! You can't just plug wires together just because the plug fits in the jack! You apparently have plugged both an answering machine and your pc into the phone jack on the wall; if you're not careful, you may let the "magic smoke" out of the chips in your phone system or PC! If you're not familiar with the "magic smoke" theory of electronics, here it is... ;-)
Electronics Engineers love to tell you of the wonderful chemistry involved in chip-making. They'll tell you about "n-channel" and "p-channel", "MOS", "hole migration" and lots more. It's all a lot of hooey! The fact is at the factory they put "magic smoke" into each and every one of those little chips and things on the board. Then they put a "smoke seal" on every component. If you do something wrong, you run the risk of breaking the "smoke seal" on one or more components. Once you break the "smoke seal" then all of the "magic smoke" comes out of the component, and it doesn't work any more. You cannot repair the "smoke seal" yourself, and none of the companies will sell the "magic smoke" to you. If the "magic smoke" leaks out, you cannot put it back in. Once you let the "magic smoke" out of the components, the only thing you can do is buy a new board, and it's very expensive because the factories don't like people who waste their precious "magic smoke."
There are many different types of "Nortel Norstar" phone systems. You need an analog port to connect an answering machine to the system. Depending on which system you have, this may be a circuit board in the KSU (the big box on the wall or floor of the telephone room) or a "black-box" adapter (although it's usually gray with nortel) in the phone room or at your desk. It's not really all that difficult, but there's more to it than just plugging in an answering machine. There are digital voice mail systems that can plug directly into a norstar jack, but they're much more complicated than a simple answering machine.
Quick-and-dirty is getting a second phone jack on your CO (phone) line ahead of the Norstar system. A good idea for doing this is to get an answering machine that is smart enough to detect when another phone picks up on the line, and drop off by itself. Otherwise you run the risk of "crashing" into the answering machine and having to shout "wait a minute, I'm here!" over the messsage while it's playing. That sounds very unprofessional.
Better is to get an analog port or adapter to the norstar. One way or another (night service, call fwd, or whatever) you can transfer calls to the answering machine only when you want it. More expensive than quick-and-dirty, but not too costly.
Best is to get a voice mail system for the norstar. It's flexible, can add features like auto-attendant, menus, direct-dial to stations, etc, but it costs money.
Good Luck, and PPPLLLLEEEEEAAAAASSSSEEEEE!!!!!
Stop plugging things into your norstar system!
If you don't, you may let the "magic smoke" out of something!
Regards,
Howard Dingman
Pro-Tel Communications
Endicott, NY 13760
mailto:hdingman@holocom.com