Loop Start ports, paging, VOIP gateways, and Bogen

[Mikey0]

Greetings. I need help fellow 5000 admins, or ideas.

I have a cross building paging issue that suddenly reared its ugly head and I'm trying to resolve but I can't figure out for the life of me why it stopped working. Here is my configuration below.

1) I'm running a Mitel HX 5000 controller.
2) I have 1 of the loop start ports configured as a loop start trunk
an RJ11 cord from the loop start port on the back of the 5000 out to the Trunk/Page port connection on a Bogen UTI1, Interface switch is set to type as trunk. a 4 wire RJ-11 cord stripped on 1 end using the Red wire into the T Contact and the Green wire into the R contact for the Page Only terminal, The other end of the stripped RJ-11 cord plugs into the FXS/FXO Port on the back of a Multitech MVP 130 VOIP gateway.
3) Ethernet connection on the back of the MVP130 connects to Ethernet and is setup with a static IP.
in the remote building connected via buried Fiber the Ethernet connection connects into another MVP130 from the switch, then the FXS/FXO port has another RJ-11 cable stripped on 1 end for the red and green wires (these cables came with the MVP units btw), with the 2 wires terminated into the TEL input terminals on the back of a Bogen C60 amplifier connected into the Tel Terminals. Which then goes out to 2 speakers in the warehouse.

Speakers and AMP have been tested with a regular Mic and are confirmed working in the remote location. I had the paging working at one point but for some reason which I do not understand, the paging stopped working a few days ago.

I have a sneaky suspicion that there is nothing at all coming out of the Loop start port but I have no way to prove it, I lack the knowledge to hook up a device directly to the loop start port and have it work. I'm relatively new to this, I really need help from some of you more knowledgeable folks, any help would be appreciated!

- Mike

[acejavelin]

Honestly, the best way to handle remote paging is buy a Mitel 5212/5312 phone, get it registered on the controller remotely, open the phone, cut the speaker leads off and splice them to a cable coming out of the phone, and connect it to the 600 ohm/Aux/Phone page input of the amp.

The method you describe should work if setup correctly, although I think it would be less than reliable. The best way to test it is put a butt-set in to test it, I will almost guarantee that the system is sending the paging audio out, you can test that with any other audio source at the system end, a radio, tone generator, etc would suffice. My guess is that the back to back SIP devices are not "trunking" properly (Mitel would be the STATION or FXS side, Bogen would be the TRUNK or FXO side) because essentially you want the Mitel to go off-hook like a phone and it expects battery/dialtone from whatever it is hooked to. Another test would be to plug an analog phone into the MVP at the Mitel end and go off-hook, can you get battery/tone from the Bogen and page? If not, then the connection is not correct.

[Mikey0]

Ace,

Thank you for your reply, I never considered doing that.

I have new information on my issue. Friday when I began looking into this issue I was getting nothing, no audio out at all that I could tell, also when trying to directly dial the Trunk from my desk phone I would receive the message that it was unplugged. I received the same message on a second loop start trunk we had configured to work with another UTI for an additional zone in this same building.

Both loop start ports returned the error of unplugged when i attempted to directly dial them on Friday afternoon. However this morning after trying a butt set in the paging output and using a plain old telephone plugged into the override port on the UTI I was able to hear the pages through the buttset from the override phone, this eliminates the UTI as my point of failure right?

Well I then tried dialing the page zone directly I could hear no page and heard no audio.

Essentially I don't know how i've resolved it, but the loop start trunks are no longer telling me they're unplugged and im getting audio again. I guess any idea who to force a loop start port to reestablish its connection? My guess is it happened when I swapped trunk lines between the 2 UTI's, is it normal for Loop start trunks to have an issue like this?

[acejavelin]

Look in the MVP's for something like "Open loop disconnect" or a similar option... unless they will drop battery, the system will never disconnect the line properly.