I've been involved with yet another cave-man system, this time a 616 for the first time. Actually fooled with the one in the shop yesterday after a service call came in so I'd at least be somewhat familiar with it. Got a book and did some programming. The customer's issues were erratic operation, some phones dead, some could not access CO keys. I went through programming and found option 22 restricts outgoing access to a trunk. I was able to set it to restrict/allow at the shop. Went through several CPUs that we had, all but 1 wouldn't allow access to CO lines, even after changing the settings.

I only had one phone to test with at the shop. Replaced the customer's CPU, got 1 phone to work, 2 others could access COs and get dial tone but couldn't dial out - no DTMF generated. Looked through various settings - tried some, no luck. I brought the shop CPU, installed that which got all phones to work. Then one went dead 20 minutes later, had to reset the system to get it working again. I installed a jack on line 1 and recommended they buy a cordless phone with a remote handset, which they did because they wanted portability and I said it could be at least a connection to line 1 if the system goes down again. Back at the shop I tried the option to clear memory (90?) on the CPUs, still couldn't access trunks, I wonder could these CPUs be shot? I proposed a VS to the customer which would be ideal, they need 6 digital phones. Told them it comes with 2 analog lines which the could use to integrate the cordless phone. I guess there's still a few of these 2 and 3 pair systems out there.

Come to find out thanks to a co-worker the Station Type, 02 must be set to match the phone in the port. Once setting that, the phone can dial out and use the corresponding keys such as HOLD, TRAN. Kind of like a key pattern, but each type of phone uses the one and only exclusive pattern.

You'll find with all Iwatsu systems until you get to the ECS that you have to set the phone type on each port as the early systems don't self-provision.

Additionally, with the 616- Different phone types require different CPUs as I recall. Some of the 'fancier' phones required the Hi-Feature CPU, the less featured phones worked with the Utility CPU.

Good to know re: different phone types/CPUs. I think we have at least one more 616 out there. Been getting service calls for several cave-man systems lately, yesterday a Samsung that uses 2 pair. I may have got them to agree to 'upgrade' to an Adix, a couple of 408 cards would do.