Shout Lines
Shout lines are shared voice rooms identified by a number. Anyone, at any facility, can dial in and talk — and everyone whose position is set up to monitor that line will hear you. They’re the digital replacement for a party-line shout circuit: always on, no ringing, no accepting, no holding.
A shout line is identified by a two- or three-digit number (e.g.,
42, 118). Dial the number to talk. If someone’s monitoring, they hear you.
Three Ways to Transmit
1. Grid button
If your facility has assigned a shout line (or group) to a grid cell, click the button to start transmitting. The cell “lights up” while you’re live. Click it again to stop.
+-----------------+
| 42 | ← line number (SHOUT_LINE cells)
| |
| ZNY | ← short name
| New York Ctr | ← display name
| ● | ← status light (top-right)
+-----------------+
2. Dialer — Shout Line tab
Open the dialer and switch to the Shout Line tab. Key in any 2–3 digit number on the numpad and press Dial. You can transmit on any line anywhere — you’re not limited to your own facility’s lines. Click Hang Up when done.
3. Active Shout Lines panel
The panel below Incoming Calls shows every shout line that’s currently hot. Lines your position is set up to auto-monitor sort to the top; other active lines appear below with a small “not monitoring” tag. Either way you can see what’s happening around you.
Controls per row depend on whether it’s one of your monitored lines:
- Monitored line: Answer (unmute your mic — talk) or Hang-up (mute your mic — keep listening). You can’t leave the line — you’re committed to monitoring.
- Not-monitoring line: Join to listen in. Once joined, you get Answer/Hang-up plus a Leave button to disconnect.
Click-to-Latch on Every Button
All grid buttons — calls, overrides, monitors, shout lines, and shout groups — work the same way: click once to start, click again to stop. A lit button is something you’re doing right now; clicking it ends the line you just started.
| Button type | First click | Click again (lit) |
|---|---|---|
| Call | Ring the position | Cancel the ring / hang up |
| Override | Start override | End override |
| Monitor (Ctrl+click) | Start monitoring | Stop monitoring |
| Shout line | Dial in and transmit | Stop transmitting |
| Shout group | Transmit on every line in the group | Stop transmitting on all of them |
Auto-Monitored Lines
Your facility’s engineers configure a set of shout lines that your position “always hears.” You don’t have to join them manually — the client takes care of that in the background. When a transmission starts on one of those lines, your audio opens up automatically.
Consolidation is respected: if you’re covering for a child position that isn’t staffed, you inherit the lines that child would have been monitoring. If the primary operator signs on, your coverage drops those lines and the other controller picks them back up.
You cannot opt out of an auto-monitored line during operations. If your FE has assigned line 42 to your position, you’ll always be in the room. In the Active Shout Lines panel you only get Answer / Hang-up for those lines — no Leave button. That’s intentional: if a line is important enough for you to be on, you shouldn’t be able to drop it by accident.
Auto-monitored lines come through without any action on your part. Dialing is only for transmitting.
Status Lights
The small dot in the top-right of every shout-line grid button tells you what the line is doing:
| Indicator | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Red, pulsing | You are transmitting on this line right now. |
| Yellow | Someone else is transmitting on this line. |
| Green | Someone is monitoring the line — you can reach them if you transmit. |
| Gray (dim button) | No one is monitoring this line. You can still dial it, but it’ll broadcast into an empty room. |
Activation and the Silence Window
A line becomes “active” (and appears in the Active Shout Lines panel for anyone monitoring it) the moment someone starts transmitting. It stays active for 60 seconds after the last transmission ends, so a brief pause between messages doesn’t close the line. Once 60 seconds pass with nothing happening, the line drops back to idle.
This means you can have a short back-and-forth without the line flickering in and out of the active-lines panel on everyone else’s screen.
The Active Shout Lines Panel
Below the Incoming Calls list on the right side of the main window, you’ll see the Active Shout Lines panel. It surfaces every shout line that’s currently hot — whether or not your position is set up to monitor it. Lines you monitor sort to the top and render at full opacity; lines you don’t monitor appear below, slightly dimmed, with a not monitoring label.
Auto-monitored lines
Your facility engineer has assigned certain lines to your position. These are a commitment — you’re always in the room listening, and the panel only offers the two controls that matter:
- Answer — open your mic so you can respond to what’s being said.
- Hang-up — close your mic. You stay connected and keep hearing the line.
There’s no Leave button on these rows. If you want to stop monitoring a line permanently, that’s an FE change on your position’s configuration — not something a controller can toggle during operations.
Lines you’re not monitoring
When another facility’s line goes active in range, it shows up here too, so you can decide whether to listen in:
- Join — connect to the line so you can hear what’s happening.
- Answer — after joining, open your mic to talk.
- Hang-up — close your mic but keep listening.
- Leave — disconnect entirely.
Join is passive — you listen. Dial (from a grid button or the Shout Line tab of the dialer) is active — you start transmitting. If you Join and later want to talk, click Answer.
Shout Line Groups
Your facility may bundle several related shout lines into a group (for example, “All Neighbors”). A group button on the grid transmits to every line in the group at once. Click it to broadcast, click again to stop broadcasting everywhere.
A group button shows a green dot if any member line has monitors, because reaching even one of them is still useful.
Dialing Outside Your Facility
Line numbers are global. You can dial 42 even if line 42 belongs to a different ARTCC — you’ll transmit straight into their room, and whoever’s set up to monitor it will hear you.
This is intentional. If you need to reach someone you don’t normally talk to and you know their line number, the dialer gets you there without any setup on your end.
Quick Troubleshooting
The grid button is dimmed and the dot is gray
No one is monitoring that line right now. Nothing’s broken — the line simply has no listeners. If you transmit, your voice goes into an empty room. Check with the other facility if they should have someone on it.
I can hear myself echoed
You’re probably monitoring a line you’re also transmitting on. Landline automatically tries to prevent this, but in rare multi-room situations it can happen. Hang up and re-dial.
The Active Shout Lines panel is empty
Either nothing’s active right now, or the lines that are hot aren’t ones your position monitors. Use the dialer to reach a line that’s not on your monitor list.
Dialed a number and got no SHOUT_TOKEN
The line number doesn’t exist. Double-check with the facility that uses it — they may have renumbered it or deleted the line.
Related Topics
- Making & Receiving Calls — regular calls, overrides, monitors
- Facility Grid — how grid buttons work
- FE: Shout Lines setup — for facility engineers