Any ex BT engineers or similar on here?

[mart]

My LL has stopped ringing and the light that normally flashes no longer does. I tried the phone in 3 sockets in the house and got the same result. My friend brought his LL round and we tried it. That did not ring either.

My phone can receive calls as I rang it from my mob while in the kitchen, then went to where my LL was and answered it. I could hear the radio playing that I left at the side of my mob in the kitchen, so it works. I can also make calls on the LL, and the 1571 system takes messages. So everything works fine but no ringing when a call comes in.

I understand that one of the wires in the main box is a “bell wire”. I have not been playing around with anything. What could be the problem, and where do I start?

 

[rtbcomp]

IIRC One of the wires is anti-tinkle connection which stops bells on extensions ringing when someone is dialling out, maybe this is causing the problem.

This may help or confuse

http://www.filesaveas.com/jarviser/bellwirenutshell.html

 

[rtbcomp]

If you've got one of the faceplates with a detachable lower section, pull the bottom off and plug your phone into the socket left behind, if it works OK the fault is with your wiring or the bottom half of the box. If the phone still doesn't work then it's BT's problem.

I've got a spare box of that type if you want it, although you're not allowed to connect it to the BT incoming wire.

 

[brightspark]

disconect any extension wires and plug the phone in if it works the extension cables will be faulty . if it dont phone bt up and they will do a test on the line from there end and tell u if its there fault or if its your aparatus if its your extensions part the cables and test each one before reconecting sometimes the sockets can also be dodgy and worn giving crackling on the line

 

[mart]

RTB & Brightspark,

Thanks for the advice. I have saved the link to fav-the website may be of interest for other things.

Although the instruction from the link is written clearly enough, I still feel a bit unsure of what I need to do.

I have taken the front off the main BT box and my phone still does not ring when plugged in directly. It kind of gives 2 "blips" every few second, but it does that where ever it is plugged in.

The BT box-the front cover that pulls off, has 6 wires in it. All my extensions are working in respect of the phone (calls) but no proper bell ringing.

Of these 6 wires, I`m not sure which are extensions and which are the main wires. If I have understood the info in the link, I think only 2 wires are required for everything to work-calls in/out and the bell. Any thoughts?

 

[Wendelspanswick]

My day job is a telephone engineer, I am a partner in a company that installs and maintains commercial phone systems. Disconnect all the extensions running off your master socket by removing the front plate, plug a known working phone in the back part of the master socket and dial 17070 and select option 1, ring back test.
Hang up your phone and it should ring, if it doesn't Openreach have a faulty ringer circuit in their exchange so you will need to report it to your line provider.
If you normally withhold your out going number you will have to dial 1470 17070 to do the ring back test.
John

 

[rtbcomp]

On the bit that pulls off they're all extensions.

The incoming wires connect to the socket left behind (maintenance socket) when you pull the front off. Putting the front bit in place connects the rest of the house to the incoming BT wires.

The incoming BT is two wires, and possibly an earth.

Give BT a ring, tell them you've tried a couple of phones in the maintenance socket and it doesn't ring.

 

[Wendelspanswick]

As an aside the line coming into your house consists of 2 wires, a and b, the speech and dialling DTMF is handled by 48v DC and the ringer circuit by 75v AC.

 

[mart]

Wendel, regarding the line coming in to the house, I notice that one is insulated and the other is bare wire (several bare strands). Is the bare wire an earth? Just asking out of interest, nothing to do with my issue as such.

 

[Wendelspanswick]

Could be the supporting wire in the overhead cable, known as Drop Wire I think, used as catenary support and is stainless rather than copper, not supposed to be used to carry voltages. Normally the signal wires are green and black or striped if a pair off a multicore cable.
Earths only tend to be used on very old earth start systems (only seen 1 in the last 10 years) and earth recall systems, modern systems use time break recall, (recalls are used to transfer a call on PBX's).

 

[rtbcomp]

That wall box of mine has A,B and E connections on the back. When the BT guy fitted it (to try to speed my broadband up) he asked if there was a good earth in the building.

The E connection doesn't appear to have been used though.

 

[mart]

I have removed all the 6 wires from the front part of the BT box. Then, plugged my phone in to the main box (whiile the front part is still off). I dialed 170 170. There was a 10 second pause and a recorded voice said, " sorry, there is a fault". Never got any opportunity to press option 1 for the ring back.

 

[rtbcomp]

There was no need to remove the wires from the front of the box, once it is detached from rest of the box they are isolated from BT

 

[Wendelspanswick]

To be honest I try and avoid domestic telephone stuff as much as possible, too many dodgy 99p home extension kits and the like!
99% of our customers are the NHS and the rest are a couple of local businesses.
Most of these use digital ISDN2, ISDN30 digital circuits or VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocal).
A very small minority use DEL's (analogue Direct Exchange Lines) and if they are faulty we just prove the fault and report to the line provider.

A useful tip though is to have a spare Broadband Filter as they fail for a pastime and wipe out the whole line, or even just remove the filter to give you speech back if you don't have a spare.

 

[Wendelspanswick]

I have removed all the 6 wires from the front part of the BT box. Then, plugged my phone in to the main box (whiile the front part is still off). I dialed 170 170. There was a 10 second pause and a recorded voice said, " sorry, there is a fault". Never got any opportunity to press option 1 for the ring back.

Should be 17070 not 170170!

 

[mart]

There was no need to remove the wires from the front of the box, once it is detached from rest of the box they are isolated from BT

Yes, I can see that now. I didn`t realise until you just mentioned it
Anyway, I`ve put them all back as I needed the ext line for the pc.

I`m going to ring Talk Talk now and arrange something as I feel quite sure now that the fault is not on my side.

Update: I have now been in touch with the Indians at Talk Talk. Actually, I may have been in touch with India and they claim to have found the fault. They are going to keep me updated.

BTW, thanks for the offer of the spare box.