Phones stopped ringing with ADSL

On Thursday I had BT remove my Home Highway and install ADSL (BT Basic).
Previously my setup was one phone next to the HH box, and plugged directly
into it. I then had extensions hard-wired into the master socket. These
phones are two basic phones, plus one Siemens DECT with answering machine,
and a BT Caller Display unit in series with it.

The engineer replaced the NTE5 front with a filtered version (I greeted him
with a tale of woe about a colleage having a similarly long line which
caused him to lose sync in the evenings (also at 512 kbit/s) and which was
cured by using a filtered socket), and the extension wiring was re-made by
him. All seemed to go well. It was only a few hours later that we realised
that only the phone plugged into the master socket now rings. At first I
suspected a REN problem (I thought the powered HH box might have hidden the
problem) but removing phones doesn't make the problem disappear. The DECT
phone actually starts to warble, then stops. The BT Caller Display shows
nothing, yet the display on the DECT phone shows the incoming CLI.

Suggestions, please, before I invest in a REN booster/CAT5 cabling for the
extensions, etc.!

Chris

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
micrometre <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> On Thursday I had BT remove my Home Highway and install ADSL (BT
> Basic). Previously my setup was one phone next to the HH box, and
> plugged directly into it. I then had extensions hard-wired into the
> master socket. These phones are two basic phones, plus one Siemens
> DECT with answering machine, and a BT Caller Display unit in series
> with it.
>
> The engineer replaced the NTE5 front with a filtered version (I
> greeted him with a tale of woe about a colleage having a similarly
> long line which caused him to lose sync in the evenings (also at 512
> kbit/s) and which was cured by using a filtered socket), and the
> extension wiring was re-made by him. All seemed to go well. It was
> only a few hours later that we realised that only the phone plugged
> into the master socket now rings. At first I suspected a REN problem
> (I thought the powered HH box might have hidden the problem) but
> removing phones doesn't make the problem disappear. The DECT phone
> actually starts to warble, then stops. The BT Caller Display shows
> nothing, yet the display on the DECT phone shows the incoming CLI.
>
> Suggestions, please, before I invest in a REN booster/CAT5 cabling
> for the extensions, etc.!
>
> Chris

It sounds as if pin 3 on the back of your filtered faceplate isn't connected
to pin 3 on your extension sockets - either because the BT engineer:
* hasn't connected it at all
* hasn't punched it down correctly into the Krone terminal
* has connected a *different* wire from the one which feeds pin 3 on the
extension sockets

Do you have a spare micro-filter? If so, plug it into one of the sockets
with a non-ringing phone and see if it then rings. If it does, it's fairly
conclusive that pin 3 isn't connected ('cos the micro-filter provides its
own ring capacitor - doing away with the need for pin 3 to be connected).

[In case you're not aware of it, you can make the phone ring to test it by
dialling 17070 and then 1 for ring-back test].
--
Cheers,
Tim
______
Please reply to newsgroup. Reply address is invalid.

> Suggestions, please, before I invest in a REN booster/CAT5 cabling for the
> extensions, etc.!
>
> Chris

Why buy a REN booster if you did'nt need one before, cure the problem.

Dave

--
For what we are about to balls up may common sense prevent us doing it
again
in the future!!

Tiscali Tim wrote:
....
> It sounds as if pin 3 on the back of your filtered faceplate isn't
> connected to pin 3 on your extension sockets - either because the BT
> engineer: * hasn't connected it at all
> * hasn't punched it down correctly into the Krone terminal
> * has connected a *different* wire from the one which feeds pin 3 on the
> extension sockets
>
> Do you have a spare micro-filter? If so, plug it into one of the sockets
> with a non-ringing phone and see if it then rings. If it does, it's fairly
> conclusive that pin 3 isn't connected ('cos the micro-filter provides its
> own ring capacitor - doing away with the need for pin 3 to be connected).
>
> [In case you're not aware of it, you can make the phone ring to test it by
> dialling 17070 and then 1 for ring-back test].

After I posted my message, I did some testing. The kitchen phone was
actually ringing this time, but the others (bar the master socket one)
weren't. So I tried a filter on the DECT phone, and voila! it worked.
Bedroom phone still not ringing, so tried another filter, and it works.

I did have a look at the socket, and there are three wires connected to the
faceplate. Will look again to check your advice above,

Chris

"Dave Stanton" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> > Suggestions, please, before I invest in a REN booster/CAT5 cabling for
the
> > extensions, etc.!
> >
> > Chris
>
> Why buy a REN booster if you did'nt need one before, .
>
>

because Stimpy isnt pulling his weight ?

In message <(E-Mail Removed)>
micrometre <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> ... Suggestions, please, before I invest in a REN booster/CAT5 cabling
> for the extensions, etc.!

As has been suggested (and you seem to have confirmed with
microfilters), the problem almost certainly lies with the wiring of the
'ring' circuit, e.g. that not all the connections 2 to 5 are connected
to the exactly-corresponding numbers on each socket.

The only point in my posting is to say, now for the benefit of others
more than yourself, that 'ren-boosters' are nowadays virtually
pointless, hence near-extinct.

They served a purpose in the days of 'real', clanging, electromechanical
bells, each of which required significant power through possibly high
line-resistance from the exchange's 'ring-generator', but current
phones, etc., with electronic 'sounders' simply don't.

What little power they consume is locally-generated from the DC voltage
across the 'lines', the ring-signal merely 'triggering' the local
generator(s).
That requires virtually no power from the 'ring-wire': though there
seems to be a convention that no(?) equipment is marked with REN less
than 1.0, the true figure would seldom be as much as 0.1, i.e. 40+ bits
of equipment could be connected to even a maximum-length/resistance line
before any risk of ringing-problems.

--
Peter Duck <(E-Mail Removed)>

On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 16:09:45 -0000, Tiscali Tim wrote:

> [In case you're not aware of it, you can make the phone ring to test it by
> dialling 17070 and then 1 for ring-back test].

OT I know, but I was interested in your comment about dialling 17070. What
exactly do the other options do?

Terry