Lost Dial Tone - Why

Hi all

This weekend at about 12:30, I arrived home to find two messages on my answer phone from the boss asking for help with his laptop. So, incoming calls OK. Using an old (unpowered) phone in an upstairs extension socket, so I could be next to computer, I dialled his direct number. The line was dead. Next I went downstairs to try cordless phone, in different extension, dead also. So I unscrewed the customer side front plate on the master box to disconnect all the extensions and plugged the unpowered phone in - nothing. Finally I rang telephone company on mobile to ask if there were reported faults locally (strangely I had seen one of their vans parked just round the corner). They said that they would alert the engineers, but if the fault was internal, I would be charged. They rang our land line to prove incoming calls OK. As soon as the call was over, I re-checked the powered phone for a dial tone - surprise, it's working fine now.

Is this coincidence? Is there a reason for lost dial tone? All I could think of was an off-the-hook phone, but we had received incoming calls while absent.

TIA

Phil

Reply to
TheScullster
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Could it be that the second incoming call didn't release the line properly?

Reply to
Tony Williams

Unplugging the extensions indicates probably not.

Reply to
Ian Stirling

Thanks, Tony. Hadn't thought of that. But we also managed to call in from mobile before reporting the problem. It wasn't until the telephone company was contacted that the line cleared. Very strange!

Phil

Reply to
TheScullster

sounds like you had a short somewhere,had you been working on the lines in the house previous to the fault

Reply to
Alex

"TheScullster" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@karoo.co.uk:

It was a completely dead line? You don't have 1571? If a message is waiting on 1571, then you get a different tone - not standard dial tone.

Yes - did read your post fully but just in case thought I'd drop my pearl...

Reply to
Rod

Was this BT? If so, I am not surprised. There are a number of exchange and line faults, which come and go for very little apparent reason. Whenever we see the BT van in our area, we anticipate another faulty telephone incident. As someone has said, it is quite common to have a line which does not clear down properly, particularly if there is a lot of rain around. Unfortunately BT does not now have the engineering capacity or expertise at local level to properly investigate exchange faults. We have a peculiar modem problem with dial up, which appears to be related to the BT automatic line attenuation level setting, but there is absolutely no interest in actually finding out what causes the problem. Hopefully your problem will be simply related to local engineering works and will not recur until the van is in your area again!

Regards Capitol

Reply to
Capitol

Not within the last month or so!

Reply to
TheScullster

No tone at all before or after dialling!

Reply to
TheScullster

No, we are Kingston Communications in Hull. Still don't understand how we can receive calls but have no dial tone! One line comprises two wires, both required for speach transmission (I thought). Surely these are either connected or not connected?

Phil

Reply to
TheScullster

Did you try dialling even though there was no tone? It is possible that the dial tone generator card was duff. This would have been fixed quite quickly.

The other, rare, possibility is a bad joint in the line which is, partly, cleared when the 120V AC ringing current is applied.

Some of the telephone network was done using aluminium cables (when copper was hard to get) and these areas are very unreliable as the ends drop off the cables.

Reply to
dennis

You would have thought ...

Do you have a multimeter ... you should see about 50V DC across the pair (a bit less when you lift a handset).

All the best ..

T i m

Reply to
T i m

Yes but without success

At the exchange?

As quickly as while we were talking on the line?

This is on the supplier side I take it?

Thanks Dennis

Phil

Reply to
TheScullster

Kingston uses mostly the same equipment as BT. From your description I understood that the calls received were to your answerphone, when you were not present. I guess I'm wrong. Yes you only have two wires at your end of the line, but at the exchange a device known as a hybrid splits the signal into effectively 4 wires. There is frequently a current sensing relay operated by you lifting the phone, if this fails to operate, then you wouldn't get dial tone.

Regards Capitol

Reply to
Capitol

Possibly. The card at the exchange that serves your line (and others) may have had a bit of brain storm. The action of the operator running diagonsitics on the line might have reset it.

I've had ISDN faults that have been cured by simply reseting the exchange card.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Presumably this is on the supplier side at the exchange end?

Thanks Capitol

Phil

Reply to
TheScullster

That reminds me.. I have a phone where the hook switch sticks. The symptoms are that sometimes you pick it up and get nothing (unless you bang the base hard). Sometimes you pick it up and it works fine.

I must remember to chuck it as its beyond the wife's understanding.

Reply to
dennis

The switch on my unpowered phone is a bit crackly, but I was aware of that and tapped it a few times. Never known it to fail completely and now the dial tone has returned, all seems in order.

Talking of this, I was testing some extensions not long ago and tapped the hook switch a few times. Next thing I heard "emergency services, which service do you require?". Apparently they are now available on 112 or similar and I had inadvertently tapped this out on the switch.

Phil

Reply to
TheScullster

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