• What is Freedom Fone?
• Our story
• What does Freedom Fone do?
• Real World Examples
• Equal Access
• Farm Radio International
• LIRNEAsia Crisis Response
• Kubatana Audio Drama
• Community Radio Harare
• Other Possible Scenarios
• Vaccination campaign
• Supporting women's rights
• Enhancing business opportunities
• Recording Oral Histories
• Election monitoring
• At the radio station
• Creating your Freedom Fone Service
• Introduction
• Equipment
• Know your audience
• Choose your information sources
• Design your service
• Create voice menus
• Organise your staff
• Advertise your service
• Monitor and evaluate
• Setting Up
• Logging in
• Incoming SMS
• Polls
• Leave a message (LAM)
• Voice menus
• Security
• Statistics
• User management
• Phone books
• Callers
• Version 2S7 & 2S8 update
• Version 2S7 & 2S8 Overview
• The SMS Centre
• Improved Hardware management
• OfficeRoute SIP security options
• Reporting – Graphics reporting tool
• Technical Stuff
• Technical requirements
• Installing the software
• Preparing SIM cards
• Connecting OfficeRoute
• Connecting Huawei dongles
• Connecting MobiGater
• Testing your set up
• Localise user interface
• Troubleshooting
• Installation
• GSM devices
• Problems with Voice menus
• Networking
• Other Problems
• Audio Cookbook
• Working with Audio and Freedom Fone
• Script Writing
• Presentation Tips
• Vox Pop
• News Summary
• Explanatory Report
• Micro Audio Drama
• Working with Voice Messages
• The DIY Studio
• Recording Equipment
• Recording Techniques
• Audio Editing with Audacity
• Audio Editing with Hindenburg
• Useful Links
• Getting Help
• Support
• FAQs
• Appendices
• About mobile phone security
• About Free Software
• About this book
• Glossary

Problems with Voice menus

I can’t hear the voice menu prompts because a voice keeps nagging me about Cepstral.

Cepstral is the text to speech (TTS) software used in Freedom Fone.  Our software will work without a licence but before it reads each line of text, Cepstral will play a reminder that you need to buy a licence. We are using the Allison 8 Khz voice for Linux.

You will be hearing this voice because you have entered text in the large text box labeled Description in your Voice menu. If this is not what you want, you can remove this text and it will stop this problem.

Fix 1:Buy and register a licence for Allison 8 Khz from the Cepstral website

A licence for the Allison 8 Khz voice for Linux can be bought from https://www.cepstral.com/. Once you get the licence you can register the voice by running the swift executable from the command prompt as follows:

• Open a terminal window by clicking the terminal icon in the centre of the title bar at the top of your screen.
• If you are prompted to enter a password
  FFv2.S.4 users type manguensis
  FFv2.S.7 and 2.S.8 users type sharicus
• At the prompt type

/opt/swift/bin/swift --reg-voice

Follow the instructions to enter the details associated with your licence. You will be asked for Name, Organisation and Licence key

Fix 2: Create your own audio files and avoid text to speech completely

If you use your own audio files you do not need to use text to speech at all!

I have tried to upload Menu options but none of my files are reflected on the Menu options screen. What’s going wrong?

The chances are that the file you tried to upload was larger than the maximum file size of 10MB allowed. Downsize the audio file by shortening its duration and/or ensuring it has been created as a WAV or MP3 file that is mono with a sampling rate of 8Khz.

Characters other than a-z, 0-9 or - and _ can create problems in filenames when you upload the files. If you see the File not found message when you try to play uploaded audio content, try re-uploading the content with a filename that follows the about rules.