Untitled

Tuesday June 24th 2003 03:54 PM PST

So now that iChat AV is out, there is a question that i need to answer. I've always wondered if you could connect a cordless phone (or any phone) to you computer so that you could make an internet call and still talk on the phone handset. I guess i just really hate speakerphone. So i started digging. I found that there is not really a way to make a direct connection. Its not like you can patch a twisted pair cable into a RCA audio cable. It doesn't work that way cause the audio for a telephone is carried on a set of wires that are also carrying voltage to run the phone. You don't want to patch that voltage into your amp.

You really need to extract the audio with a transformer and then patch it to the amp.

I really need to build an entire phone test circuit. This way i can pull audio coming from the phone as well as broadcast audio back to it. Then all i should have to do is plug the test circuit into my computer. I should be able to connect to somebody on iChat and pick up the cordless phone to talk.

I see a trip to radio shack in my future.