Loudspeaker problem

When my ADSL was installed, my "handsfree" telephone (just sit in front of
it and speak) stopped working (could hear my callers loud and clear on the
speaker, but they all said I was impossibly faint to hear - fine on the
handset).

Coincidence or broken phone? I assumed broken phone, and bought a new one
(well, the old one was pretty ancient, and I was thinking of replacing it
anyway - I use a hearing aid, and I need a T-Loop and a little extra
amplification or both, and the Geemarc CL 1400 offered that plus lots of
extra bells and whistles).

Same problem.

Now "hands free" phones have to arrange that they are not both Speaking
and Listening at the same time (otherwise, they will all oscillate). So if
it hears incoming "speech", it cuts the microphone off (or reduces its
gain to almost zero). And it seems it cannot tell the difference between
ADSL noise and "speech" (we got the clue, because one person spotted that
when I really bellowed into the microphone - louder than the noise,
presumably - it suddenly came alive and deafened him).

Now I am 99.99% sure that my wiring is correct. The BT man who removed my
Home Highway box managed to interchange wires two and five (which
produced some _very_ interesting effects - but that is another story). So
in the course of that I checked every connection very thoroughly until I
got back to the BT man's connections.

I have got a filter fitted as an alternative faceplate to the Master
Socket, and all the rest of the wiring in the house is as it always was.
What I have done now is to fit an extra filter in tandem to the
loudspeaking phone, and the problem is fixed - I can carry on a
conversation when I am standing six feet from it.

So has anyone else had problems with loudspeaking/handsfree telephones,
and found it necessary to do more than the usual filtering?

--
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133 Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: (E-Mail Removed) Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
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In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Charles Lindsey <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
> So has anyone else had problems with loudspeaking/handsfree
> telephones, and found it necessary to do more than the usual
> filtering?


Well, I've certainly got a speakerphone which no longer works on hands-free.
I had assumed that it had just stopped working, rather than being associated
with ADSL - but the two *could* be connected. I don't have any spare loose
filters since I am using a filtered faceplate - but I might get one and try
it some time.
--
Cheers,
Roger
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