Anyway to get the fax & answering machine to play nice?

[paperfist]

Or do the laws of modern physics prevent this from ever happening?

So I have a MFC printer with a fax and an answering machine on the same line and I can never get the fax machine to stop picking up non-fax calls.

Is there a device I can use or some work around for this age old problem?

Basically I have to fax out 5-10 documents a year to business that won't accept emails. I can add a fax service to my website for $10/month but that's kind of a waste of money. I know there's free email to fax services, but I don't want to depend on them. I just want the fax machine and answering machine to play nice.

Thanks for any help

 

[0roo0roo]

you set the fax to manual
live with the fact that you have to be there to recieve faxes.

 

[0roo0roo]

http://www.ehow.com/how_2080625_use-answering-machine-fax-machine.html

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Model of printer? On every MFC I've owned including my Samsung Color Laser, Lexmark Inkjet, and HP MFC, in the manual they've always stated the proper configurations and order-of-connections for proper fax compatibility.

Sometimes its adjusting number of rings before pickup, other times you need to connect your answering machine through your fax machine.

 

[corkyg]

This is a good approach.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2080625_use-answering-machine-fax-machine.html

Normally, the fax should receive first - and if it does not receive the squealing fax tone, it does not activate and the answering machine should take it.

What I did was get a second line dedicated to the fax. Then after a couple of years I dumped the fax completely. A page scanner directly to a PDF file attached to email is faster. I don't miss the fax at all.

Nowadays, you can send faxes from your computer using VOIP, not email.