Grief / Confusion trying to fix a phone socket/line. ARGH!

[SB118]

Trace where the drop cable comes into the house from outside as you must be trying an old redundant pair

Already done, this is the only set of cables that come in to the building from the pole.

The red boxed connection are the active pair, the blue & white to the left are the blue & white feeding to 2 & 5 in the master.

They have a voltage, just not much. Can't go back and check details for a few days, wife is working 5pm shift which means i finish work at 4 & go on sprog duty. Forgotten how much energy a 2 year old can have

 

[wozzizname]

You can always use 17070 to check the line (gives you the option for testing other numbers or doing a ring back test on the line you're on) - unfortunately BT's line test system isn't always that reliable, and I've been on jobs where the line tests fine but I'm looking at a sheared cable. It's common to get faults on one leg of the line, and completing the circuit with a local earth will often get you a rough dial tone - I'd just report it to BT, as it certainly sounds like a local network fault

 

[kefkef]

I had a fault a few years back, phone was acting really wierdly. Phantom rings (just ring once, ring constantly for a few seconds etc), completely dead when i picked it up from a proper ringtone, cutting out etc when speaking on it, constantly dropping adsl connections. Phoned BT, asked them to test it and they said it was fine, carried on for a few weeks and i kept pestering bt who kept telling me it was fine.

Eventually they agreed to send out an engineer but if nothing was wrong i would be charged. He turned up, did a few tests that didn't show anything wrong, was about to leave when the phantom ringing started again (it was windy outside). He disconnected the whole wire from the pole outside, and on checking it, the wire had become frayed/split and was making a good connection when no wind but when windy was breaking connections. Replaced it and the master box (it was one of those really old ones) and never had a problem with it for 2.5yrs when i moved out.

 

[Vonhelmet]

CUT THE GREEN ONE!
NO, BLUE!

KABOOOM!

I fixed our phone lines in our old house because NTL had buggered them up. Phone wire is a bitch, it does indeed fall to bits at the first sign of trouble.

 

[Mickey_D]

Good Lord your phone line system is wierd!!!

Over here we have two wires come in. That's it. And they wire directly up to the connections on a phone's plug.

 

[Briton]

Good Lord your phone line system is wierd!!!

Over here we have two wires come in. That's it. And they wire directly up to the connections on a phone's plug.

That's all you need here for a single line but they now always bring in at least a two pair. The modern cable also has steel strainer wires. The system shown here is very old.

 

[Mickey_D]

Same here. They always bring in a 4 conductor cable to the junction box outside the house. There are red, green, black, and yellow. The red a green are the only ones you use unless you elect to have two different phone numbers at your house (land line phone and dial-up internet is one instance). You then run a 2 conductor wire to each of the phone jacks in the house from the red and green connections.

That's it. What I see pictured above is WAY too complicated.

 

[B12]

Spent about 3 hours this evening trying to sort out a relations phones.

Line is totally dead, no line tone, no ringing when somebody dials in.


Cheers.

Why on earth are you trying to sort this problem? you don't have a clue what you are doing and are likely to incur your relations a lot of expense getting this sorted in the long run.

As it happens, my line gave EXACT same symptoms as your inlaws twice in the last 4 years, no line tone and no ringing when someone dials in, took me two free calls to BT to get it sorted, but the result in both instances was a PCB on my switch at our exchange, nothing I could have done my end and it was sorted for free, god knows what kind of bill your relations are going to get after your messing around?

BT only assume responsibility behind the faceplate and master socket, you went beyond this unless you can cover your tracks ... IMHO.

Good Luck.

 

[SB118]

Why on earth are you trying to sort this problem? you don't have a clue what you are doing and are likely to incur your relations a lot of expense getting this sorted in the long run.

As it happens, my line gave EXACT same symptoms as your inlaws twice in the last 4 years, no line tone and no ringing when someone dials in, took me two free calls to BT to get it sorted, but the result in both instances was a PCB on my switch at our exchange, nothing I could have done my end and it was sorted for free, god knows what kind of bill your relations are going to get after your messing around?

BT only assume responsibility behind the faceplate and master socket, you went beyond this unless you can cover your tracks ... IMHO.

Good Luck.

Well my relations have rung BT several times and have been told the line test came back fine and that there is nothing wrong with there incoming line and the fault must be within there house. And considering the wiring in their house is very old, it seemed a reasonable assumption.

My uncle is in his 80s, he is infirm, BT told him there was a problem with his wiring, and he believed them, silly old man.

My messing around? It confirmed that the problem isn't in the internal wiring and that the BT line test was wrong. Yeah, what was i thinking.

 

[B12]

Were the initial calls to a BT call center in India, per chance? Mine were, they did the standard tests, asked me to hang up, called me, of course phone would not ring for me, but they got a ring tone, they left a message i was able to check with 151 saying they had successfully left a message, therefore there was no problem .... ARGHHH, 2 more attempts at this happened before i managed to get someone from a UK call center who managed to grasp the nature of the problem, and it was indeed a PCB at my exchange.

I know you mean well, but you wont be able to fix things your end.

Good Luck, once More