Application of speech recognition technology seems to have very good prospects in creating intelligent answering machines. A system of that kind could be able to perform most of routine duties of a secretary connected with telephone calls, e.g., to hold pre-programmed dialogs initiated either by some caller or by the answering machine itself. The flow of the dialog could depend on the interlocutor and on his answers. The system described below is based on a PC and hardware, now commonly available, like modem and sound card connected to telephone line via specially developed simple interface device. Speech recognition is carried out by the quasi-linear method, using critical bands log spectrum processed to emphasise speaker-dependent formant information or on the contrary to make it more speaker-independent.