FRILLS

We have a few "frills" on this node......it's an ongoing thing of ours to add more, from time-to-time. Most of the scripts that run these facilities have been developed by other node owners and some have been modified for our use.

HUGE THANKS to all the people responsible!

As per the regs, please identify your station before keying in ANY of these codes. DTMFing for the sake of it is poor operating technique, drives the listeners up the wall, and in some cases will even go unrecognised as the machine may need to hear voice audio before it will accept any DTMF input. There are some special DTMF sequences used for remote administrative purposes that have access codes, and of course most people don't need to use these.

Because this is currently a simplex node, bear in mind that you may not always be able to hear a station making an announcement or using DTMF codes, so the node may appear to be doing things all on its own!

DTMF MENU

We've tried to keep most of the commonly used codes to a defacto standard which is widely used around Australia. To access the Main Menu which will tell you most of the codes, use DTMF code #5

TIME "OVER THERE"

If you want to know the local time at a distant node, the DTMF code is ##(node number)....for example to get the time at node number 1230, use DTMF code ##1230

LAST NODE

To hear a replay of what the last node was and when it connected, use DTMF code #123

LAST "A FEW OTHER THINGS"

Another useful one will replay the last call waiting, last incoming call and last outgoing call announcement.......use DTMF code #69

WEATHER

For the weather at Coffs Harbour, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, and usually updated every hour............use DTMF code #1. Why Coffs? That's where the node started, so it's purely nostalgia. Besides, it saves editing the custom_decode file;-)

Weather from 100 different locations around Australia can be accessed by using DTMF code # followed by the postcode, eg Wagga is #2650. We figure that most people who want to know the weather "back home" would know their postcode! If nothing is transmitted, it means the gadget didn't hear you, or the postcode for that area is not available on this system. Try another major town nearby.

TIME

If you want to know the time (who doesn't ?!), use DTMF code #2

The node uses NTP to accurately synchronise its clock against an atomic time standard, and so will always be accurate, within the limitations of verbally reporting to the nearest minute. When the node is not being used, there is an announcement on the hour following an experimental time signal consisting of six "pips", the 6th one being longer than the others. The end of the 6th pip is normally within half a second of the time signal broadcast by Sydney's Local ABC radio and some commercial radio stations, although this is not guaranteed and is there merely for the purpose of doing it, because we can. If the node is connected to another station, the time signal will go off on its own unless someone at this end is talking. If someone at the other end is talking, the time signal will be heard in the background.