sundance-communications.com/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Toshiba Telephones & Systems dk40i with telco voicemail - how to illuminate message light

I work with a small non-profit who have a DK40i serving three inbound telco lines in a hunt group. The telco provides offsite voicemail service which notifies the user of a waiting message with an altered dial-tone (rather than a steady tone, the user hears the dial tone with interspersed segments of silence). Is there some way for the DK40i to detect the presence of a waiting message on the external voicemail (either by detecting the altered dial tone, or through some other means) so that it illuminates the Message Waiting light on the handset?

The office staff tend to not pick up the phone to listen for the altered dial tone when they return from lunch, so messages are sometimes left unheard for some time. If I could set up the message waiting light, it would be more obvious to them.

Thanks for any help.

No, there is no way of lighting the mw lamps on the DKTs with telco's voicemail. You can get a mw indicator from Mike the Sandman that can give you a visual indicator of a message, but you'll have to wire line 1 to it.

Mike is good, here is a top of page google hit for $18, compare prices.

https://www.electronicsoutfitter.com/store/CW-ML-97-WT.html

You have plenty of pairs coming to the wall jack and you only need one pair for the phone, as meister says, just wire one pair to line one and BINGO.

Thanks to both of you. Sandman's page has a good description of the differences between FSK and the stutter dial tone systems. See https://www.sandman.com/messwait.html

I found the same part Bunnie mentioned. It's nice in that it works both with the stutter tone and FSK. I have ordered the part (although I wasn't as good in my searching as Bunnie, and I spent $21), so now it's just a case of finding line one and running a pair of wires to the spot I want to locate the message waiting light.

Thanks all. This board is very helpful.
David