Free Conference Calling Blog

Folks sometimes ask about the risk of an uninvited “guest” listening in on a Rondee.  In practice it would not be possible for a spy to listen-in without you knowing. That is because when you call-in to the conference call first as the organizer, you’ll be told how many people are currently on the conference.  Presumably you’ll be told that you are the first (if, in fact, you are).  Thereafter, as each person joins the Rondee teleconference they are announced by name.  If somebody were to try and use the PIN of a user - without authorization - and dial in without saying their name to the system, you would immediately notice because the system would announce “blank” is joining the conference.

You are making Rondee one of the most talked about conference calling companies in America. Thanks to all of you who give us your feedback, ideas and suggestions to help us grow.

Our first issue focused on the new features that we built to help make Rondee the best free conference calling service available. If you do not currently receive Rondee News, simply register for an account and you’ll be included on our issue next month.

Yes, you can record your Rondee conference calls! When you set up your Rondee you’ll see several boxes with options you can select. Just check the box to record the call. Your invitees will be notified that the call is being recorded. After the call is over, just go back to Rondee.com (you can get to your call through “My Rondees” link at the top of the page once logged into your account; you’ll see a new link for the recording which will have appeared on the particular page corresponding to that Rondee.)

Your call will record in the GSM format. If you’re interested in how to convert that to another format, please see the blog post by one of our users: converting your Rondee to another format

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A few folks have written to us asking what could have happened.  Invariably the answer is this: After inputting the PIN, you must press pound.  Otherwise, Rondee will not know that you have finished inputting your PIN and will wait for you to continue.  In a few cases, users report that they entered their PIN and pressed pound only to be told that “This Rondee is not in use”.  Assuming you have dialed in at the correct time, this error message is generally caused if the PIN is entered too quickly or if the reception on your phone is poor and the tone transmission is affected.  The solution is to re-enter your PIN a bit more slowly.

If you start a bit late, no problem.  As long as someone joins the Rondee within 30 minutes of the scheduled start, the space will be ‘held open’ for the group. If the call goes later than anticipated, its still not a problem. You can keep talking as long as you like.

If you are the organizer, you first need to navigate your way back to that Rondee’s page.  You have two options to navigate your way back.

1) You can either click on the link in the e-mail you received when you organized the Rondee; or
2) you can log back into your account, click on “My Rondees” and then select the particular Rondee you want to cancel

Once you are on that Rondee’s page, you will see a red button in the lower right hand corner called “Cancel Rondee”

Simply click on that button

Note: this works for regular Rondee as well as recurring Rondees

Inviting more people to a Rondee conference call is possible, provided the organizer has allowed this.  It is an option that the organizer selects as part of the Rondee setup process.  Remember: your PIN only works for you, so if you want to invite someone else, be sure to visit Rondee (just click on the link in the email you received) rather than forwarding that email.

Rondee now provides organizers with a special PIN that can be distributed to others who would like to listen-in on an ongoing conference call.

On your invitation page, you will now see a “Listen-only PIN”. This PIN is unique to your conference, and it remains private unless you distribute it to others.

The following post is by Dr. John Rachow. John serves on the national board of Physicians for Social Responsibility (hence his use of Rondee for conference calling) and recently investigated options for converting Rondee audio files.

“I tried The FreeAudioConverter at the brothersoft site. Despite the description of the program it does not seem to support .gsm. Further during installation, I am told that the product will not work full featured unless I install their (purportedly free) security suite software, System Guard. It got more complicated and invasive after that. I unloaded it all.

I had tried FXBear Audio File Converter (I had purchased it earlier in the week). It does not successfully convert gsm files as it claims to do. Since I purchased the software ($38) I have queried their support people. The FXBear interface is certainly simple and it did look like a good solution.

Last night I searched further and found NCH Swift Sounds (Australian based company http://www.nchsoftware.com) and installed their free Switcher audio file converter. With this product, I stopped looking. The link is:

Rondee audio file converter application

Installation is super fast and simple It is a compact program (553 KB) with a sophisticated looking but easy to use interface. It works fine, converting the Rondee .gsm file to other formats quickly, including .mp3

They also have a free audio file editor, WavePad. that that allows editing a wide variety of native audio file formats including .gsm. WavePad allows you to save the file in any of a wide variety of formats (allowing you to set all the sampling and bandwidth parameters unique to each format in the process). Editing options include applying a variety of effects (noise reduction, equalizer, volume, band pass, echo, flange, and others) In effect, Wave Pad also can be used as a file converter as well as an editor. Switcher only does one thing, convert formats and has a more very simple interface.

NCH has versions for both Window and Mac. They have a Linux version for WavePad and the Linux version for Switcher is coming.”

A few of you have noticed that we just went live with a new set of features for Rondee-Now. For those of you not familiar with Rondee-Now, it allows you to get your own unique virtual meeting space by claiming your own Rondee ID (e.g. “Adam”). If the ID has not already been taken, it’s yours. When you want to talk with other people, just send them a text message, IM, or email asking them to dial 619-2-RONDEE (619-276-6333) and then enter your Rondee ID. This free conference calling capability is available 24/7

It used to be the case that to claim your own ID, you would need to call 619-2-RONDEE (619-276-6333) and enter your desired ID on the telephone keypad.

Now you can check online with our handy interface and immediately find out if the ID you want is available.