Nortel Phone System Advice

Norstar as a sound monitor

2011-05-03T14:13:00.001-07:00

I just recently had a major change in my lifestyle that caused me to investigate how to use my Norstar phone system as a Baby Monitor. This same idea could be applied many ways - not just for listening to sleeping babies.

The idea is very, very simple. You can do this one of two ways:

OPTION #1. simply go to the phone in the space you want to monitor (in my case, the baby's room) and make a hands-free intercom call to the phone where you want to listen from (i.e. the kitchen, garage, front office). It will help if there is someone waiting at that phone to answer it. Then just put the that second phone on hands free also. And there you have it, a direct speaker phone/speaker phone connection. Also, as not to send sound back to the babies room, I mute my HF key.

OPTION #2. This actually my prefered method. I go to the baby's room and press the key for PAGE. Depending on how your phone system is configured you may need to adjust 3 things:
- there will be a page time-out setting in the system programming. You'll want this as long as possible. Ususally 45 mins is max. (on some older systems, it may be indefinite).
- the page button should be programmed to page over "speaker and sets". (Feature * 630)
- The sets that you wish to send page to must all be in at least some page zone and have paging enabled.

The reason I like option#2 is it allows me to traverse the house from room to room (or basement) and I can monitor the babies room phone from any phone I happen to be near.

Now, if you want to get really fancy, you could put only specific phones into a particular page group (let's say page group 3). And then you could target the page broadcast to F*633 (the feature command for paging over speaker & sets on page group 3). This would allow you to exclude phones that didn't need to hear the paging such as another child's room, the living room or other.

Now I know I used the "baby monitoring" example. And, that's because it's something I need right now. But, just think for a minute of the ways this idea could be applied to other situations.

- a front office where the person staffing the front reception area has to go to the back part of the building. If that person were to press the page key on that phone in the front area, he could walk to other parts of the office and still hear the door, door chime, bells, whatever.

In any case, I hope that helps someone.

connecting to Nortel 5550 or 4550 switch to manage

2009-09-10T13:01:00.000-07:00

Just got done spending a bunch of time trying to get connected to some of my Nortel ethernet switches. Since the learning curve is fresh in my brain, I thought I share it for others to find. (Lord knows, I get a lot of trival info from the web).

If no management IP address has been established for the switches yet, then the first step is to connect via a 9-pin console cable. I believe this is a PROPRIETARY cable. I tried using a regular 9-pin serial cable to no avail. Later, I bought a cable that was said to be specifically for this purpose. Sorry, I don't have the pinout. But, I do have the part #! :-)

If I'm wrong about not being able to use a straight serial cable, please leave me a comment so I can add the correction here.

The part # for the special Nortel cable I got is AL2011013-E6 02 SC111108.

Anyway, if/when you get the special cable, or it's equivalent, and you're all connected... establish a serial connection at 9600 8N1. Then hit "ENTER" a few times. If you see nothing, which is likely. Do a "CTRL+Y".. that should pop-up the welcome screen. Or, it may prompt you to enter an IN-BAND management IP address.

You are now connected. I will not go into the minutia of setting up a management IP address in this post.

setting time or date on Nortel PBX

2009-06-24T18:21:00.000-07:00

I am writing these steps as they pertain to a Nortel CS1000 PBX, but these same step will most likely work on any of the Nortel PBX family (Option 11, Option 22, Option 81, SL-1).

You'll need to be at the console (or remote connected to the console). The console is that black & green screen where the programming for the PBX is done. It usually resides in the same room with the PBX cabinets. But, some people can access it remotely either by modem or over the Network using something like Hyper terminal or Procomm.

Login to the console with

LOGI
> USERID? admin (or whatever login name you use here)
>PASS? (enter your password)

now, type LD 02
you'll see just a period at the prompt like so
and, we'll type TTAD to see the current time
.TTAD
. WED 24 JUN 2009 17 10 34
.

Now, we'll type STAD to change the time and then enter the date and time like this
DD MM YYYY HH MM SS (Date, Month, Year, Hours, Mins, Seconds)
.STAD 24 06 2009 17 11 00
.

if you get an error it means either your format is wrong OR your login doesn't have enough rights to change the time. Ask or check around to see if there is another login and try that one.

To exit this mode, type **** (enter)
This exits the LD 02 program. Now, to log out completely, type LOGO (enter)

you are done :-)

Here's the video on this one:

OK

Assign speed dial number to button on Norstar phone

2009-06-23T17:42:00.000-07:00

If you a have a Norstar phone system and you have a phone with some extra buttons on there doing nothing, you've probably wondered if you could assign a speed dial number to one. The answere is YES.

Now, in proper Nortel terms assigning a number to a button is called AUTODIAL. And, Autodial comes in two varieties - External Autodial and Internal Autodial. For this discussion, we'll focus on External Autodial.

First, what buttons can be programmed? Well, if you have a 7310 (not sure? try looking on the bottom side of the phone), you should have at the top of the phone a set of 4 x 3 buttons about 1/2" x 1" big. All those buttons can be assigned as AutoDial buttons. If you don't have a 7310, then your choices are limited. See the video for more on this.

Anyway, the way the assigning of a number is done is by pressing FEATURE * 1. Then press the button to be assigned. Then dial the digits and press OK (you'll see the word OK) in the LCD screen.

Here' s the video that shows you step-by-step:

change time on Norstar

2009-06-21T16:15:00.000-07:00

Changing time on the Norstar phone system is the most common request I get as a phone technician. Two reasons this is true are:
1. anytime the Norstar phone system loses power, the clock stops. So, when power is restored, the time if by the amount of time the system was without power.
2. many of the Norstar systems don't have a setting for Dalylights Savings Time, so two times a year the time has to be changed.

Now, there is more than one way to change the time. I'm going to start with the simplest.

Try using the following key sequence from a 7310 or a 7324 phone (if you don't know what these phones are, search earlier posts in my blog where I have pictures).

Press FEATURE * * 8 4 6 3 (spells T-I-M-E)
if you get prompted for a password, the default is usually 266344.

If you get nothing.. or you just see the digits 8463 sitting in the screen, it probably means you have an older version of software and we'll program the time change a different way.

Here's the video that covers what we just did:

IF the FEATURE * * 8463 did NOT work, then we need to enter the Administrative programing mode.
That is done by entering FEATURE * * 2 3 6 4 6. The default password is usually 2 3 6 4 6.

See this video on how to navigate to the place where you change the time and date.

Entering Configuration Programing mode

2009-06-12T18:24:00.000-07:00

A little experiment here. I'm going to show you with a Video how to enter the Norstar programming mode at the CONFIG level.

*** CAUTION: unlike the ADMIN programming which is fairly benign that I showed you in an earlier blog, the CONFIGURATION programing mode has the potential to de-stabilize your system if you are in there making changes without the proper knowledge or guidance.

Here's the video:

Entering Norstar Programing mode.

2009-06-12T04:33:00.000-07:00

This segment is just to tell you how to get into the programming mode of a Norstar phone system (this will not work on a PBX. And, it may or may-not work on a BCM).

First off you need to be at the right type of phone. You need to work from a M7310 or a M7324. They look like this.

It's best if you can use a m7310 or a m7324 at a location that doesn't ring much. Reason is, that once we enter programming, you will not be able to anser the phone. Unfortuneatley, at some locations (smaller business), the only 7310 or 7324 is the operator's phone. In that case, do the programming early in the morning or waiting until closing time.

Before you can enter programming mode, the phone must be idle - you cannot be on a call, nor can you have calls holding on that phone.

To enter the Administrative programming mode you press these buttons:

FEATURE, * * 23646

you'll be prompted with PASSWORD:

enter 23646

If the screen changes, you're in. If the PASSWORD: prompt just stays there, it means the default adminsitrative password has been changed.

At this point, I'm to stop here and make another post soon about the kinds of changes we can make in this programming mode.

To Exit the programming mode and anytime, just press the little red (orange) Rls button.

Now, if your password didn't work. Here's some suggestions on how to get it.

1. go in the room where the phone system is located (grey box that say NT or Meridian on it) see if there is any papers or manuals left laying around nearby.

2. look on the phone system itsself, often times if an installer changes the password, he'll scribble it somewhere on the case, or instide the cover.

3. ask around the office to see if anyone remembers when the phone system was installed and if there were any books. Usually, if the password was changed, it was left written on the books or in some notes with the books.

4. At last resort, if you know the name of the person or company that actually installed the phone system, call them to see if they would have changed the password. And if so, what is it likely to be. At most telecom companies I did work for, if they had a policy of changing the password, they usually had only a handfull of passwords they used over and over. Don't be shy about asking - this is YOUR phone system. Logging into the ADMIN programming mode is a completely normal end-user function. It's not like you're trying to steal their thunder (aka: their billable hours).

My new Nortel Blog

2009-06-12T03:15:00.000-07:00

I've worked with the Nortel telecommunication equipment since 1991. I felt it was time to start brain-dumping some of my vast technical knowledge of some of their more popular equipment.

In this blog I will attempt to share little pieces of programming that should be something that any administrative type can do. Such as changing the clock, reprogramming a button, changing LD dialing permission, and a bunch of other stuff.

Also, I'll try to cover small little troubleshooting tips and maybe a few cute, benign hacks.

Yes, I know Nortel (aka: Northern Telecom) is having money problems. But, they have a TON of equipment out there that will be out there for a while. Plus, it's almost a given at this point that either Avaya or Siemens will buy the Enterprise communications division. So, it's not like they're just going to disappear