Buzzing on phone line?

[RickH]

If all the logic/continuity checks above check out ok, then its probably induced hum from the AC line. Has it been raining there a lot this week?

[Jethro]

I should also add - we had a 7 hour outage last Friday. Makes one wonder eh?

Jethro

[RickH]

If your wires are hard wired to the phone service then it's done wrong or it's just old. The demarcation box should have a plug/jack so you can disconnect easily from the POT (plain old telephone) line. Installing a demarcation box would not be a bad idea once this is all figured out.

[mm]

Peeopl have a lot more things than just phones connected to their phone line.

Try unplugging all of them, but one. The unplug that one and give the line time to reset at the phone company office. Then plug in a different one.

Consider your burglar alarm dialer, your modem, your caller-id box, your cordless phone, your wired phone, your answering machine, and maybe even specialty things most people don't have, like a central redial box, an indicator light.

Go into each room to help yourself remember what is in there.

Did you drive any nails that could possibly have hit a wire. Just get one phone working and then you can take your time getting the rest.

90 per half hour is a lot of money.

[aemeijers]

Note that if this applies to you, make sure you call the alarm company FIRST, and tell them, so they don't call for a police response thinking the place is being attacked. Yeah, a faulty 'line seizure' block could add static. Note that if it is a real fancy system, it may have an embedded cell phone link as well.

aem sends...

[mm]

One at a time, checking after each one is plugged in? Or all at once? All at once just puts you back werhere you were.

Which is where I am now. I would go out and buy a few

[Andy]

If you don't have a modern plug in demarc box, you might still have a porcelin arrester with carbons in them. You might have taken a overvoltage strike, and one of them is shorted out. They are usally in the basement. The newer ones are small with the round carbons inside.

[Jethro]

Sure has - several inches.

Jethro

>

[gfretwell]

You have one side shorted to ground. It could just be water somewhere. Start at the Dmark and isolate the house from ther street side (usually you just unplug "the house") Check it there with a phone. If that is good it is in the house. If the street side is bad call the telco. From there you just try to isolate each leg of the inside runs until you find the bad part. Suspect wires pinched under thresholds or other places where they can be damaged/shorted

[mm]

Didn't you say early on that you unpllugged the house from the phone company? That plug/jack will do just fine to get rid of the voltage in the hosue wiring.

My house only 28 years old, was built without a plug/jack outside, but the phone company put one in for free (in the long run to save themselves money, because they couldn't otherwise expect a customer to be able to tell his house's problems from theirs.)

To get infinite resistance between the tip and ring, or whaever are your two wires, you have to have everything with a bell or ringer unplugged from the phone wiring in your house. And probbaly everything that doesnt' have a ringer also. It's the wires that are supposed to be separated from each other, not the appliances that plug into them.

Now that I see you have done, properly I hope, the first set of tests, I should tell you that I have suffered from hum for several years. I did the Disconnect Everything tests and didn't find the problem. Then because I was short of time, and I hadn't been able to use the phone for a day, I ran some phone line from my computer, out the window, and plugged into what I think RickH has been calling the demarcation, the box outside the house. A bit later I plugged a phone in next to the computer, and I ran a wire to my bedroom.

I ran that way for a year, until I had some time and was determined to find the problem. I connedted things back the original way, and every thing worked fine. For a year or two, then the hum was back.

This time I spent more time trying to solve the problem. My house has insdie in the basement a little connection block where several sets of phone wires are pushed into pinch connections, one set was original with the house, one set I used to run phone line to the basement and the master bedroom (where the original owner had sheet-rocked over the phone jack) and the attic and the bathroom.

Anotehr set, of only two, I put in and it went to a jack 6 inches away for use by my burglar alarm, and I think there was a 4th set but I don't remember what it was for.

The wire is cut short with this type of device, when connections are made by pros, but when I make the connections I live a few inches of wire beyond the pinch connector.

Anyhow, if you have a connection place anything like this and you have more than one set of wires, you can disconnect one set, and find out if the hum is in that one or the others. In my case the hum was in my set. Maybe mice? I only need two wires and I've run four, so I should disconnect the red or the green and replace it with the yellow or black. If that doesn't fix it I should replace the other. You would use your colors. But I've been busy.

[mm]

No, zero would mean some sort of short.

A low value might mean a phone was connected and off the hook. It would have to be an old phone with a magnetic bell to give a reading close to zero.

BTW, my hum had nothing to do with wet weather. I'm thinking maybe I pinched the wire when it ran through the attic. I may have put plywood over it and then stepped on the plywood. (I don't think I did that because I took precautions against that, but I'm running out of ideas.)

[HeyBub]

Maybe the power company has a leaky transformer, a defective reclosure, something.

If you get the power company involved, they will, I promise, respond much faster than the telephone company. They've got vehicles chock-a-block full of radio receivers that can pick up their "static."

Another trick you can try. Take a sledge hammer to the light poles, the ones that have transformers hanging from them (looks like a garbage can). Give the pole a mighty whack and see if the static goes away. You may need a helper to tell you if the static goes away.

Still, the power outage you experienced, and the resulting surge when it came back on, may have wounded something electrical at your house.

[HeyBub]

I often think unthinkable thoughts. Glad I was able to give you an idea.

Back to my writing: I'm writing a book whose working title is "Toilet Tissue Origami - The Ultimate Book for the John."

[M Q]

...

Also test for voltage and then continuity between each of the lines (tip/ring) and ground. Again, it should be zero volts and infinity ohms. But this hum/buzz sounds like one of the lines has a short to ground somewhere.

[dadiOH]

Thank you, forgot to add that important instruction.

[Jim Redelfs]

I suggest you use a telephone connected to the Standard Network Interface device (SNI/demarcation point) until you have called your phone company, cancelled the current trouble report and subscribed to their inside wire maintenance plan. You can then call-in a report with little concern about any charges.

If your trouble occurred coincidental to a power outage, it is often something left plugged-in to the phone line that became grounded. Surge strips with phone outlets are often the culprit. Anything with an external power supply (cordless phone base, modem w/power supply, etc) can cause such a ground on the phone line.

If you have unplugged *EVERYTHING* in the house that is connected to the phone line - including the RJ31 security system interface IF it has one (it SHOULD)

- and the buzz persists, the trouble is likely a GROUNDED conductor somewhere. This is usually VERY difficult to find, even for a professional.

I have seen more than a few phone cords protruding from a window or door, plugged directly into the SNI (bypassing the house wiring). This should give you some "breathing" time to get signed-up for the maintenance plan or for a lesser-expensive professional to repair the trouble.

Phone wire, unless it is approved for DIRECT BURIAL, should never TOUCH the ground outside or under the house. If there is such wiring, it is likely the culprit. Good luck.