Tinkle tinkle little bell

UrbanFox

Any ideas on this problem ?

Over the last few weeks two problems presented.

1) Random tinkling of the phone bell - just once each time. No call connected. No call logged on the caller ID.

2) When the telephone rings the bell goes about three times and stops. There is a caller on the end of the line if you pick up the phone and the call registers on the caller ID.

There is no separate bell - just the instruments internal bells.

There are 4 phones in the house. The sockets are connected in parallel. There is a caller ID. There is no alarm, broadband or other function carried on the line. This arrangement has been in place for years with no problem.

Eircom replaced the outside wire between the house and the pole. The problem persisted.

I checked the box where the Eircom line comes in and there are 51 volts DC present. Whilst the voltage is there I wonder if there is a current problem i.e. not enough to drive the ring function.

Could this be a main cable fault. None of the neighbours are having the problem although it could be just my little strand of wire in the main cable gone u/s!! Otherwise, I suspect it is more probably a loose connection in the house that will just have to be traced.

The only thing that I can think of that might have been changed accidentally could have been the switch positions on the phones as they were all moved around recently. Is there a correct position for these switches and would it make any difference ? The switches on the phones are
PHONE 1 = TT or DP
PHONE 2 = ER or TBR
PHONE 3 = TONE or PULSE
PHONE 4 = TE or TB

Thanks.

JohnnieM

Is this "phone Bell" a separate bell? edit never mind just read post again..lol.. are some of the hansets old type.. are we talking real bells here..i imagine when you moved the phones around you'v eunbalanced your ren value because posssibly the first phone is an old type and is pulling the ren.. switch them back or get an eircom socket the type with th resistors and wire the rest of the phones from the master socket..

UrbanFox

JohnnieM wrote: »

Is this "phone Bell" a separate bell? edit never mind just read post again..lol.. are some of the hansets old type.. are we talking real bells here..i imagine when you moved the phones around you'v eunbalanced your ren value because posssibly the first phone is an old type and is pulling the ren.. switch them back or get an eircom socket the type with th resistors and wire the rest of the phones from the master socket..

No, we got rid of the Dr. Finlay break your arms with the weight phones ! They are all push button now.

I was thinking about that REN value alright. While I don't know a lot about REN technically I get the point.

It is probably hands and knees trace the wiring time....

BTW what are the switch positions supposed to be ?

JohnnieM

Dont know.. tone anyway lol..
I would nt think its a wiring fault as the line would most likely drop if so.. try move the phones back as suggested and replace them one by one etc etc

Solair

There are only two options on phones :

Dialling:
Tone or Pulse

R button (Recall):
Timed Break Recall or Earth Recall

The options used on ALL Irish telephone lines should be TONE and Timed Break Recall.

Timed Break Recall - phone momentarily hangs up. (Used on eircom lines for call waiting / 3 way calling)
Timed Earth Recall - phone earths the line (only used on old office systems)

PHONE 1 = TT or DP (Set to TT)
PHONE 2 = ER or TBR (Set to TBR)
PHONE 3 = TONE or PULSE (Set to TONE)
PHONE 4 = TE or TB (Set to TB)

Pulse dialling will work on any eircom line, and even on VoIP adaptors, but you should be using tone dialling to keep things simple. It's only still there to allow backwards compatibility with older phones / rotary dial phones.

If your phones are tinkling there are a few common potential problems :

1) You have a cordless phone with SMS capability and someone's trying to send you a text. You will notice that your other phones ring once and your caller ID displays : 0818365135.
It's possible that someone has set up SMS service on the line, but that you no longer have an SMS capable handset on the line. This will result in any attempted SMS causing the phones to ring as the system is expecting an SMS device to answer and accept a data burst.
To solve this problem, ask eircom to disable SMS or, get an SMS capable phone.

2) You have very old hardwired (pre Telecom Eireann days) or more recent British telephones on the line connected without a bell wire.
If you have any BT phones on the line, they should be connected via an adaptor with a ringing capacitor. This mimics a UK master socket and will allow the phone to work without tinkling.

They should be connected with the adaptor + their original cable.

These look like :


There's a long and boring technical explanation for why this is necessary which I will spare you from!

There's really nothing that eircom could have done on their side that would be likely to cause your phones to behave like this.
Did they by any chance replace any of your internal wiring ? or remove any phone sockets / replace them with new ones?

Perhaps ask them to check the polarity on the line too, it's possible it's somehow reversed. That can make some phones behave oddly.

Try swapping the two wires over where they come into your house. If that solves the problem, you know why. Most phones don't care about the polarity, but some old ones do.

Finally, the voltage on your line is perfect at around 50V DC. The ringing signal's actually aprox. 75V AC applied across both legs of your line. You will see this on your multimeter if you check the line while it's ringing. Just be careful, ringing voltage is potentially dangerous.

UrbanFox

Solair wrote: »

There are only two options on phones :

Dialling:
Tone or Pulse

R button (Recall):
Timed Break Recall or Earth Recall

The options used on ALL Irish telephone lines should be TONE and Timed Break Recall.

Timed Break Recall - phone momentarily hangs up. (Used on eircom lines for call waiting / 3 way calling)
Timed Earth Recall - phone earths the line (only used on old office systems)

PHONE 1 = TT or DP (Set to TT)
PHONE 2 = ER or TBR (Set to TBR)
PHONE 3 = TONE or PULSE (Set to TONE)
PHONE 4 = TE or TB (Set to TB)

Pulse dialling will work on any eircom line, and even on VoIP adaptors, but you should be using tone dialling to keep things simple. It's only still there to allow backwards compatibility with older phones / rotary dial phones.

If your phones are tinkling there are a few common potential problems :

1) You have a cordless phone with SMS capability and someone's trying to send you a text. You will notice that your other phones ring once and your caller ID displays : 0818365135.
It's possible that someone has set up SMS service on the line, but that you no longer have an SMS capable handset on the line. This will result in any attempted SMS causing the phones to ring as the system is expecting an SMS device to answer and accept a data burst.
To solve this problem, ask eircom to disable SMS or, get an SMS capable phone.

2) You have very old hardwired (pre Telecom Eireann days) or more recent British telephones on the line connected without a bell wire.
If you have any BT phones on the line, they should be connected via an adaptor with a ringing capacitor. This mimics a UK master socket and will allow the phone to work without tinkling.

They should be connected with the adaptor + their original cable.

These look like :


There's a long and boring technical explanation for why this is necessary which I will spare you from!

There's really nothing that eircom could have done on their side that would be likely to cause your phones to behave like this.
Did they by any chance replace any of your internal wiring ? or remove any phone sockets / replace them with new ones?

Perhaps ask them to check the polarity on the line too, it's possible it's somehow reversed. That can make some phones behave oddly.

Try swapping the two wires over where they come into your house. If that solves the problem, you know why. Most phones don't care about the polarity, but some old ones do.

Finally, the voltage on your line is perfect at around 50V DC. The ringing signal's actually aprox. 75V AC applied across both legs of your line. You will see this on your multimeter if you check the line while it's ringing. Just be careful, ringing voltage is potentially dangerous.

No, they just replaced the outside wire.

The internal wiring is the old "Posts & Telegraphs" (aka Gateposts & Telegraph Poles for those Halls Pictorial Weekly fans amongst you) type with a twin "flex" of grey and white with a single conductor in each !

Thanks for all that information. I'll get to work on it as soon as I can find my flashlamp !!

Solair

It's also quite possible that one of your telephones has developed a fault.

If it's just 2-core grey and white old-fashioned phone cable, then there is no ringer wire between sockets anyway so it's quite similar to a modern installation.

You said that the wiring is very old. Are your phones hardwired, or do you have RJ11 sockets?

It's also possible that you could have a loose wire in your system / at the point where eircom's wiring connects to yours.

If a wire were loose and occasionally touching, it could send a spike down the line which might cause the tinkling.

Perhaps check the junction box where their line comes in if that's possible. Usually this is in your hallway / attic space. Typically it's a little beige, black or brown box that looks a little like the shape of a bar of soap.

Also check that the connections are secure in each phone socket (assuming that it's modern enough to have phone sockets)

UrbanFox

Update and question.

The old sockets were replaced years ago by Eircom and take RJ11 plugs which is what we have on each phone.

2 of the 4 phones are UK/BT type and connect through an RJ11 adapter like Solair pictured. If one of the adapters has gone u/s I can probably get a replacement in Peats.

I also followed Solair's idea about checking that the plugs were secure and found that the SOCKET door that springs closed on the plug is kaput on one of the extensions so the plug was not actually snug. I think that it probably got a belt from the hoover so that needs to be replaced.

How do I wire a replacement socket ?

If I could get a replica Eircom socket that would be an easy job. However, can I get one of those or can I get another socket type that will do the same job for an RJ11 plug ?

I see from Peats website that they sell a telephone socket outlet and wonder would that do the job ? See http://www.peats.com/cgi-bin/catalog.cgi?view_product=1&id=6496&sid=11&cid=134&scid=580

The Eircom socket to be replaced has 6 terminals which read from left to right 6/L1 2/R 1/L2 4/L1 5/R 3/L2.

Numbers 6 and 4 are the same polarity.
Numbers 2 and 5 are the same polarity.
Numbers 1 and 3 are the same polarity.
There are 50.8 volts DC between the L1 and L2 connections.
There are 49.8 volts DC between L1 AND R.

NUTLEY BOY

A secondary question about this please.

I notice that modular plugs / RJ11s have 4 wires in them variously coloured black, red, green and yellow. The red and green always seem to be the centre 2 pins with the yellow and black being the outside pins.

What do these 4 wires do or are they multipurpose cables for different installations/uses ? I thought that telephones just needed 2 wires for basic telephone purposes.

BTW I was told that the RJ11 adapters for connecting UK/BT phones to Irish sockets could probably be bought in Power City or PC World or the like.

Solair

For a single line normal telephone, only the centre two pins (red and green in the telephone cable) are used. You can safely ignore yellow and black.

The standard telephone plug used in Ireland, is also used in the US/Canada. They have up to 6 pins, so you can wire them for various things e.g. supplying data to office-style 'feature phones', for carrying up to 3 phone lines to a single phone, or for various other purposes.

Normally, a phone simply connects to the centre two pins.

You can get those BT-eircom adaptors in peats electronics, or a lot of hardware stores.