'Dinging' phone bell

Faulty wiring or phone line to the nearest exchange.

Not always, some older systems do seem to be prone to something the new exchanges are doing maybe testing or could be something to do with caller id or broadband who knows. However, it might be an idea to see if phones on the same line also do it with the bell disconnected. If yes, then get the man round. There are also issues if the line has been changed ie if its now connected to virgin or a voip box, the latter seems to ping phones with abandon. Suspect psu issues.

Brian

age

Any chance you have 1571 enabled and the phone is going off hook to check for messages?

John

It's not properly wired - probably by extensions put in incorrectly. Does it "ding"if you pick the phone handset up? If you dial with an old pulse-dial phone, does it tinkle for each digit?

Bells should be in series with a bell capacitor. If they're not, they ding once as the phone is picked up. Modern square plug extensions (post 1980) are wired with 3 or more cores between sockets, so that there is one capacitor in the master socket, and this bell wire is fed on the 3rd core. If they aren't, then the bell tinkles during pulse dialing.

If the extension wiring, or the bell, is old, this capacitor may have failed, hence the recent start. More likely though is that some phone gadget has recently taken to picking up the line at intervals. As John says, this could be for a 1571 check. My CLI display does this.

We have had a problem in the past where one or two phones peeped avery so often. The phone company suggested it was to do with a self-test on the line and they gave us a filter to plug in.

SteveW

Any chance you have 1571 enabled and the phone is going off hook to check for messages?

John

That's what I was going to suggest. Even if he dosn't have 1571 on the line, you can't always turn the checking feature on the phone off.

Do you have any friends with extreme political views because your phone could be bugged. We were friends with a couple with such views. One time shortly after a long phone call, it rang like yours and on answering heard my conversation being replayed. It is a long shot but don't laugh and dismiss it Robbie

Must be dreadful amateurs doing this. If you sniff the line with a high impedance amp you'll have no idea at all you're being recorded. Even if it's connected/disconnected while you're on a call.

In message , Andy Dingley writes

no, we don't get that. just this occasioanl single ding at possibly regular, but pretty infrequent times.

If I can find one, I can try and see.

TBh, the wiring of the phones is such a mess I've never actually worked it all out yet.

Ah, this is quite possible. We do have one phone that has a flashing button when we have message, so that presumably does such a check. I will try disconnecting that and see if that has any effect

Thanks