Make a Conference Call in Yahoo Messenger

Yahoo! Messenger has a free built-in conference call feature. You can easily setup a conference call to communicate simultaneously with up to 500 people in different geographic locations. If the participating computers are equipped with webcams, you can view the other participants while chatting using a microphone or a headset.

1. When scheduling the conference call, insure that all participants have downloaded and installed Yahoo! Messenger, preferably the latest version. Check the Additional Resources box at the conclusion of this article to get the download link. After downloading the appropriate version of Yahoo! Messenger, follow the step-by-step installation instructions. The installation process takes only minutes.

2. Adjust the volume of your computer speakers to insure that you can hear the other call participants. Because of differences in microphone sensitivity and internet connection speeds, its often necessary to increase the speaker volume. To do this in Windows, double-click on the volume icon, usually located in the lower right corner of the Windows taskbar. Or click Start, Settings, Control Panel, and click on the Sounds and Audio Devices icon.

3. While your are within Sounds and Audio Devices panel, you can also check your microphone volume by clicking on the Audio tab and clicking the Volume button. Increase the volume if necessary. If you haven’t setup the microphone previously, click the Advanced button, and you can fine-tune your microphone settings by reading the text passage and observing and adjusting the microphone sensitivity.

4. If you decide to consistently use Yahoo! Messenger to make computer to computer conference calls, consider purchasing a headset designed for computer conference calls. These headsets are less cumbersome than built-in microphones and some provide background noise cancellation for higher voice quality during the conference call.

5. Before connecting to the call, check that Yahoo! Messenger is setup correctly with your installed microphone (and webcam, if you are using one). To do this. click on the Yahoo! Messenger icon, and then the Messenger tab (in the upper left corner) and then choose the Preferences tab. Under the Calling & Devices tab, you can confirm the microphone and speaker setup. The System Default setting means that Yahoo! Messenger will use the same microphone and speaker settings as Windows, generally the best choice. Under the Calling & Devices tab of Yahoo! Messenger, you can also test your microphone audio settings, but generally, the default microphone and speaker settings in Windows will work well.