Question from my daughter..... who, having acquired a *sit up and beg* American push button telephone wonders why it does not work when plugged into her UK domestic telephone socket.
Vague fatherly explanations such as different voltage/pins used/etc. have not satisfied:-)
I don't know the actual origin of the unit: nicked from some hotel or purchased for normal use over there but I am sure someone in here will be able to explain the problem.
regards
Well at a very basic level, the plugs are different so perhaps it isn't actually connected ?
AWEM
Should work if connected to the correct pins.
It might also have a seperate dc supply as well. She should have pinched the transformer as well.
Adam
I disagree :-) Well, it may work, but maybe not as expected. The phone may be polarity sensitive so there would be a need to get the A and B wires the right way round. Also if the phone is from the period of analogue networks, or designed to that standard, the US telephone system used a different level plan to the UK one. The US phone will sound "quiet" on UK networks.
Have you seen:
Normal US analog (sorry, analogue) phones will work in the UK, assuming you have an adaptor to be able to plug them. However, as Peter Parry's site says they will not actually ring, due to the ring voltage being applied to a third pin which American phones simply do not have. A special adaptor will fix this. Personally I've never noticed US phones sounding quiet on UK lines.
If the phone doesn't work at all (eg, pickup handset, no dialtone) then she probably doesn't have a normal US analog phone. It's probably using propriety analog or digital signaling - if he phone is designed to work with a PBX (so, a hotel phone might be a good example) then this is fairly likely. Note that it may be possible to get it working if it is proprietary analog phone - it may be that the signaling is the same, but the pins are different. If it's digital you're screwed.
Caller ID is another story entirely (might work, might not depending on phone - different signaling used in the US and UK.)
"If conected to the right pins"
Yes. But that isn't 'not working'
As a matter of interest, does anyone in the world outside the UK use UK phone plugs?
Is there any plan to standardize on this throughout the universe?
Yes.
Some places in the Middle East, Carribean, I believe
Given the plethora of mains plugs even in Europe, I doubt it.
No.
Channel Islands, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Israel, New Zealand, UAE, Zimbabwe
Hi,
Try a modem lead, if the lead works in a modem that only has the two inner contacts in it's line socket it should be OK.
cheers, Pete.
Bahrain, or they did at Gulf War I time.
In message , Piers Finlayson writes
I knew this was going to get technical:-)
I will package up the various comments and pass them back to Son in Law who is actually dealing with the issue.
It rather sounds as though *source* might be important so I will ask and report back.
I think the connector is the same as the 4 pin line input on our BT answer phone but there was no dial tone when this was tried.
regards
I stand by my statement ;-)
Well I suppose if you consider that Tel Aviv has a street named after General Allenby and New Zealand is like going back in time 13 hours and
30 years that's kind of true. Sheiks Khalifa and Mohanmmed are at least anglophiles. OK, I'll buy that.
The way these US connecters on phones and modems are wired doesn't appear to be standard, even with just the two wires of the line. Dunno why.
They are often designed for a 1-1 IDC connection to a UK-BT plug, which is the wrong pair for a US socket. I've often found this to be the case outside the UK too, so this doesn't appear to be a UK-only phenomina.
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