The Unsorted BBS Collection/thegreatunsorted.tar/thegreatunsorted/texts/boxes/hallmark.box

Text File | 1994-06-18 | 8KB | 148 lines

               T H E   H A L L M A R K   B O X
         The EASY way to carry a tone in your pocket.

Purpose: Generating quarter tones for phree phone calls.

Cost: Close to $10.00

Materials: 1 Hallmark recordable greeting card.  $7.95
           1 Momentary push button. N.O. RS# 275-1547  $2.69 for 4
           1 220 ohm 1/4 watt resister RS# 271-1313  $0.49 for 5
           5 1N914 diodes - RS# 276-1122 $1.19 for 10
           1 9 volt battery snap. RS#270-325 $1.39 for 5
           1 Plastic case. (QIC Tape case is perfect!) $??
             If your cool, buy a good case! Look around.


Tools:   Soldering Iron, solder
         Wire cutters
         Hot glue gun (Highly recommend) or any good adhesive.
         Drill with bits for Speaker and push button holes.
         A Computer with a Sound Blaster card
         "BlueBeep" by Onkel Dittmeyer or QUARTER.VOC


NOTE: Wire colors will vary. But I think you will understand anyway.

Hey here is my first box! Sort of. I Read about this idea on a
message base somewhere and decided to make it. It is by far the
best way to generate ANY tone or sound from a hand held device.
The reason being is that its CHEAP, and that you can record the
actual sounds or tones directly into the chip. Since adding a
crystal to a Radio Shack Dialer is costly and "not exactly" the
right tones, you may find your new Hallmark box to operate on
more payphones. After you build one, I am sure you will build
one for a friend, its easy!

Since I am not technical on the DTMF frequencies I will not cover
that here. The program BlueBeep will generate the tones needed for
you to record into your Hallmark box, so forget about crystals!
Okay here we go. Go to your local HALLMARK store and buy a couple
of those "talking" cards. Buy 3 or 4 if you can afford it. When
you pay the nice old lady tell her how much your family will enjoy
these charming cards. Might as well thank them for their product.
Hee Hee. If they only knew what they are contributing to. ;>
Take the cards and rip them open. Trash the pretty greeting card
in the trash and grab your dikes (wire cutters).

Start cutting the parts out of the plastic frame. Use your brain
and watch what your cutting. Cut out the speaker, the battery case
and shit can the red switch, which probably fell on the floor anyway.
The micro phone is not needed so cut the wires closer to the mic.
These blue wires will be used to connect to the Sound Blaster later.
Cut the GREEN and BLACK wires at the switch, you will be connecting
your push button switch to it later. Now the circuit board can be
cut out and then you can unscrew it or vise-versa. You should now
have all the parts cut out and trimmed nice and neat. Right?

Grab the plastic tape case and get you glue gun or glue ready. BTW
you can build this in a cassette tape box too, but you should get
a case thats soft plastic, so it wont break when you sit on it.
Grab your drill and make a hole on the side for your push button
switch. The speaker hole can be made with a large paddle bit or
make about six 1/4' holes in a nice circle pattern. You may even
find that due to the volume of the device, you can just glue it on
the lid without a hole! Check it out. I drilled mine though. Ok the
speaker is on the lid and right below it on the same half of the
case glue the circuit board down. BE CAREFULL about the placement
so that the box will close right. Glue the battery box on the other
half, with the battery "tray" facing out. That way you will be able
to change the batteries. Let it dry. Solder the GREEN & BLACK wires
to the push button switch. You may need to add a bit of wire, due
to the short wires that were on the board. Sample the volume of the
speaker and see how loud it is. You may want to solder in a 200 ohm
resister in-line on one leg of the speaker wires. This will bring
down the volume to a resonable level. NOTE: If your toner is too
loud, the frequencies won't be right. The telephone needs a quiet
quarter. If you blow it, have fun talking with some hell bent narco
operator!

Everything should be at glued down and connected, except for the
wires that used to go the mic. Right?

You will now need to connect a 1/8" headphone cable to the blue wires.
I just cut off one from a old headset. Make sure you have about a
foot of extra wire to make it easier. Connect it to the blue wires,
and remember this wire can be removed after recording or coiled up
and left in the case. Plug in your HALLMARK box into the Sound Blaster
speaker output. (Next to the Joystick port). Turn the volume almost
all the way down. You will figure out the right volume. Now run the
BLUEBEEP program and go to the REDBOX section. Now all you have to
do is place the HALLMARK circuit board switch to record, and as soon
as you hold down the push button it will start recording for 10 sec.
Hit the "3" on your keyboard to record the quarters. I recorded 4
quarters with a 2 sec pause between them. Switch the HALLMARK circuit
board switch to play and hold down the push button. How does it sound?
Re record it until you get it right. The volume may contribute to your
success rate, so be sure to experiment.

If you would like to have your HALLMARK BOX operate from a 9 volt
battery, here is what you do. Go buy some diodes at the "shack"
part # 276-1122 they come in a pack of 10 for $1.19.
Also pick up part #270-325 9V Snap Connectors $1.39. You get 5 so
share with a friend. Thats all the extra parts you will need.

Now according to the "Getting Started in Electronics" book
for every diode you add in-line to the + side, you drop the
voltage about .6 volts. So if you solder 5 diodes in line
you will drop the voltage approx. 3 volts. (From 9v to 6v).
Now when I did it my meter read the voltage as 7v so I dont
know why it doesnt follow their info. Bottom line is just get
the voltage down to 6-7 volts. 5 diodes got me to 7v.

Now make sure that all black lines on the diodes are all going
same direction. If you need more help with the diode installation
ask someone for help. Cut off the old battery pack and connect
the red wire to the 5 diodes (black strip end). Connect the other
end of the diodes to the red wire of the 9v battery snap. Then just
hook up the battery snaps black wire to the boards white wire.
You did it. Now plug in the 9v battery.

Thats it. You have made a HALLMARK BOX! Does it look cool? No? Then give
it to your friend and make a better one for yourself. You can paint it
black if you want it to look a little less like a HACKER BOX. Now dont
be a bozo and try to call a operator and call to Austrailia. You should
only use this on PAC BELL phones when calling long distance or toll calls.
Local calls require a deposit and that cant be done with a redbox. You
will find out what you can and cant do. And since COCOTS do not listen
for coin tones, the Hallmark box will never work on it. And one more
thing, if you blow the tones the operator will try to bust you. If you
hangup they may call back. (Happened to me). And if you jam and someone
else picks up the phone and tells them what car you got into, hmm well
just be carefull. I would reccommend not calling any "personal" numbers
until you are sure what to do. If you blow the tones and the operator
trys to call the number you dialed, you might get popped.

UPDATED INFORMATION

5/24/94      Gawd the glue gun works perfect! Shit it's hot though!

6/06/94      Included a GIF of one in a "real" case. Includes a jack
             to re-record tones. As you can see its a bit more advanced.
             The case is a beeper "style" case with a belt clip.

6/18/94      Changed 100 ohm resister to a 220 ohm. Was too loud!
             Loud tones were bringing on the operator!
             Included instructions for 9V battery replacements.
             Added a few words of wisdom, and precautions.