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I am trying to hook up two fax machines on the same number. The second one is in the Bosses office and he is Wanting to send faxes from there. We do not have a ton of fax traffic so having the two machines cancel each other out will not be an issue. I haven't but i can run another hard line to the second machine if necessary. I also have the tools and some basic knowledge on 66 blocks if that will help me or not. I used to do some cabling and swapping from att to charter a couple years back but have forgotten much of what i learned. Any help would be awesome. Thanks!

*blinks* What year is it?

And, why two machines on the same line number? IIRC whichever one is set to the lower number of rings will always pick up first. Is the Boss Machine only intended for sending? If so, set the number of rings high and the other machine will do all the receiving.

Fax? Isn't he the original bad guy in the Pern universe?

ludi wrote:

*blinks* What year is it?

1998, apparently.

For the last 20 years, we've used a fax-to-email service. It's vastly superior to an old analogue fax machine and it's probably cheaper than the toner cartridges alone. Oh, and you can send/receive faxes from any device without needing a clunky and expensive old analogue line.

Chrispy_ wrote:

ludi wrote:

*blinks* What year is it?

1998, apparently.

For the last 20 years, we've used a fax-to-email service. It's vastly superior to an old analogue fax machine and assuming it's probably cheaper than the toner cartridges too.

With the downside of having to create the appropriate firewall whitelists. The daily spam trap summaries I get from our third-part filtering service still contain attempts to spoof various scan-to-email and fax-to-email file types. Anymore, an actual fax transmission is a lot like a paper check, if anyone bothers to send one there's a 95% chance it is legitimate.

ludi wrote:

The daily spam trap summaries I get from our third-part filtering service still contain attempts to spoof various scan-to-email and fax-to-email file types.

Well of course. That's because the demographic who still use fax machines are the ripest targets for the scammers.

Let's face it, fax has been dead for at least a decade so the people that are still using them are more likely to also be a decade behind on scam-awareness and system security. If I were a scammer, fax users would be an obvious target, if not the MOST obvious target.

Chrispy_ wrote:

Let's face it, fax has been dead for at least a decade so the people that are still using them are more likely to also be a decade behind on scam-awareness and system security.

Let me acquaint you with the complaints hotline at my office. That device remains mission-critical.

If you need a complaints hotline, surely your current business model isn't working very well

Maybe it's the fax machine and dated technology to blame

He's a bank regulator. They get complaints about banks. He doesn't work for the banks, he works for the state government.

I suppose your comment about business model is still relevant but not for the reason you thought...

just brew it! wrote:

He's a bank regulator. They get complaints about banks. He doesn't work for the banks, he works for the state government.

And a fair number of complaints still come in on the fax machine from consumers using the fax machine at their local library or town office. To shut down the fax line would mean a non-trivial portion of the state's population would lose their easiest contact/document sending method.

At least we use a plain-paper fax machine. C'mon, we're not THAT ancient.

Fax is still used a lot in law, healthcare, and especially real estate. It's probably never going away, however much affluent nerds with affluent nerd jobs in affluent nerd cities might argue that anything not living in a Google or Amazon server farm is blasphemy.

As I understand it, a fax can have the weight of law because it can be verified, whereas an email is way too readily spoofed.

While people may agree to accept an email, legal matters have strict requirements for court purposes.

xgsound wrote:

As I understand it, a fax can have the weight of law because it can be verified, whereas an email is way too readily spoofed.

While people may agree to accept an email, legal matters have strict requirements for court purposes.

While this may have been true years ago, spoofing a fax wouldn't be difficult with modern tech. If there is indeed a legal distinction remaining, it is probably time for it to go the way of the dodo.

xgsound wrote:

As I understand it, a fax can have the weight of law because it can be verified, whereas an email is way too readily spoofed.

While people may agree to accept an email, legal matters have strict requirements for court purposes.

Welcome to the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act. The short version is if both parties to a transaction agree to document it in a mutually-acceptable electronic form, it is legally recognized and binding between them and upon a court of dispute adjudication.

[/Day Job]

NovusBogus wrote:

Fax is still used a lot in law, healthcare, and especially real estate. It's probably never going away, however much affluent nerds with affluent nerd jobs in affluent nerd cities might argue that anything not living in a Google or Amazon server farm is blasphemy.

Nope. Fax will go away sometime, and probably sooner rather than later. Besides the fact that it's slow and a PITA and low quality, ladlines are going the way of the dodo too. Even fax on VOIP requires special hardware to be purchased/used and is still a PITA. Good riddance. Be gone, fax machines!

Do I know for certain what it will be replace by? No, not necessarily. It'll be gone at some point though. Email is plenty reliable if you have someone that knows the ins and outs of SPF/DKIM/source (code and otherwise)/digital signatures/etc/etc/etc. Hopefully the aforementioned fax to email isn't the stopgap so many will land on before really moving up the technology food chain.

(statement above crafted from Kansas (not Seattle or SF or Austin or LA ))

DancinJack wrote:

Do I know for certain what it will be replace by? No, not necessarily. It'll be gone at some point though.

The lack of a standard replacement is probably the only thing keeping it around.

Digitally signed PDFs are becoming increasingly common where I work, but this requires people to overcome the enormous obstacle of obtaining certificates.

TheRazorsEdge wrote:

DancinJack wrote:

Do I know for certain what it will be replace by? No, not necessarily. It'll be gone at some point though.

The lack of a standard replacement is probably the only thing keeping it around.

Digitally signed PDFs are becoming increasingly common where I work, but this requires people to overcome the enormous obstacle of obtaining certificates.

For sure. Digitally signed (insert doc name) is huge, especially in law. I worked for a company that did Electronic Discovery for litigation teams and saw too many to count. Docusign makin' bank.

'Digitally' signed PDFs pragmatically are, in my experience, a scanned john hancock pasted into an afterward flattened PDF. I'm unsure if other firms operate in a similar manner.

update I have them setup.. I just need to run cable. can I need to run the line from the splitting the fax line or can if we have 4 lines and the 4th line being the fax can I just hook up to any phone jack that we currently receive calls on?

Ringer count should be pretty easy to find, as it is a setting that people commonly tweak when they have multiple devices on a line with a fax.

If you are still required to keep paper files, that's a separate issue... but given that it's apparently the case, I can see how faxes would simplify your workflow.

I rarely need to deal with paper copies of anything at my day job, but my interactions are primarily with other software developers and L3 tech support people, so everything's already in electronic form.

Chrispy_ wrote:

ludi wrote:

The daily spam trap summaries I get from our third-part filtering service still contain attempts to spoof various scan-to-email and fax-to-email file types.

Well of course. That's because the demographic who still use fax machines are the ripest targets for the scammers.

Let's face it, fax has been dead for at least a decade so the people that are still using them are more likely to also be a decade behind on scam-awareness and system security. If I were a scammer, fax users would be an obvious target, if not the MOST obvious target.

Fax isn't even remotely close to being dead. Plenty of companies still use fax; particularly when they need to be able to establish a legal record of communications. Use of fax is incredibly common at law offices, banking, real estate, corporate finance... and that isn't likely to change any time soon.

To the OP, as others have said - the most obvious way would be to set the machine meant for receiving to a lower ring count, and it'll answer first.

At a past office, we had a setup with multiple faxes that would send, but only one that would receive, all on the same number, that was done via the line itself... but I don't know the specifics of how they did it. Probably involves mucking around with the switchboard, so unless you want to hire someone, I'd start with the ring count.

At this point I just need to know if I need to separately wire them or if I can split off the OG fax machine and run the line from that.


Thank ya'll for the helpfully information.

Svantetit wrote:

At this point I just need to know if I need to separately wire them or if I can split off the OG fax machine and run the line from that.


Thank ya'll for the helpfully information.

Buy a dollar store phone line splitter and run an RJ11 (ie phone cable) to the other machine. both parts commonly available at dollar stores for $1 each.
You can set fax machines to number of rings... including never answer for an outgoing only fax.

<edit fixing typo>

Svantetit wrote:

At this point I just need to know if I need to separately wire them or if I can split off the OG fax machine and run the line from that.

Thank ya'll for the helpfully information.

As long as you can set the one you want to receive the incoming faxes on to answer after fewer rings (and/or disable auto-answer on the other machine), having them both on the same line should be fine.

Only other potential issue I can think of is you may get glitches if someone tries to use the other machine at the same time. When the other machine goes "off hook" to look for dial tone you could get some noise on the line, corrupting the transmission.

just brew it! wrote:

Only other potential issue I can think of is you may get glitches if someone tries to use the other machine at the same time. When the other machine goes "off hook" to look for dial tone you could get some noise on the line, corrupting the transmission.

newer models did have "line in use" detection.
My old computer fax modem had it.

Awesome Thanks everyone. Sounds like I should have all the part in my toolbag and we have some old phone cable laying around here somewhere.

Arvald wrote:

Buy a dollar store phone line splitter and run an RJ11 (ie phone cable) to the other machine. both parts commonly available at dollar stores for $1 each.
You can set fax machines to number of rings... including never answer for an outgoing only fax.

Dollar Store, picking up the slack.

UberGerbil wrote:

Arvald wrote:

Buy a dollar store phone line splitter and run an RJ11 (ie phone cable) to the other machine. both parts commonly available at dollar stores for $1 each.
You can set fax machines to number of rings... including never answer for an outgoing only fax.

Dollar Store, picking up the slack.

They really did here for misc finished components.
I'm now starting to see parts mega stores opening up in industrial areas catering to those who like to tinker offing all the parts for electronics build your own.

DrCR wrote:

'Digitally' signed PDFs pragmatically are, in my experience, a scanned john hancock pasted into an afterward flattened PDF. I'm unsure if other firms operate in a similar manner.

"Digitally signed" means cryptographically signed with a secure public-key algorithm.

I don't know what your employer does, but that stuff is basically garbage. Any idiot can copy and paste a written signature in MSPaint. Those documents are essentially worthless unless there's a physical copy on file somewhere.