No ring signal

[Roger Mills]

built in the 1700's! [Probably didn't have a phone in the early days, though ]

late model NTE5, which says Openreach on the front.

Yes, indeed, done all that!

[Roger Mills]

Yes, done all that. Tried a phone which is known to be good, in the test socket - with and without an ADSL filer. Zilch!

[Roger Mills]

Are you sure you mean 6 - there's nothing connected to 1, 4 or 6!

[Roger Mills]

Yes, done that - see my other posts.

From everything I've read, it seems to me that whatever is supposed to generate the AC ring signal at the exchange isn't doing so.

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , Man at B&Q escribió:

Yes. The destination exchange now just passes a message back to the calling exchange saying "give the caller a ring tone"

[John Rumm]

No, there is a shunt cap in a microfilter to enable ringing as well... Hence you can wire everything on two wires and use the filter to provide pin 3 when required.

Many phones are two wire these days, and make no connection to the ring wire - so they ring cap or no cap.

Based on Roger's experiment with a filter in the test socket, it seems conclusive he has a line fault.

[David Woolley]

BT caller ID is done before the first ring, so a failure to generate ringing current wouldn't break caller ID.

[The Other Mike]

For calls within the UK maybe, but calls from the UK to overseas and vice versa the cadence and tones used often show that ringtone is from somewhere other than the originating exchange.

[George Weston]

I had a similar fault last year. I could dial out but incoming calls did not ring my phone. I had exactly the same initial response when phoning BT Faults: "your line tests OK". However, I persisted and so they gave me the standard bit about me paying if a fault was found with my wiring. They then went through the rigmarole of booking an engineer's visit, which I was sure was unnecessary (it was). Sure enough, they did further tests and found "a fault in the network", which they duly fixed. This type of fault seems to fool BT's fault-testing systems for some reason...

George

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , The Other Mike escribió:

Might originate from the last exchange in the chain before handover to BT.

[Andrew Benham]

Sounds like that's the case. If so, the fault will be experienced by more subscribers than just you. In "the old days" IIRC ringing current was generated by a motor-driven device which produced 3 different phases of ringing current, but that's probably not the case in modern exchanges.

[Peter Parry]

Quite a few modern phones are still 3 wire, especially BT badged ones (usually Siemens made).

[Dr J R Stockton]

In uk.telecom message , Thu, 13 Dec

2012 11:44:31, Roger Mills posted:

A generation ago, I had a business trip planned to end not far from the home of a friend and his family. So I thought I'd book tea with them. The obvious move was to use my work phone to phone their home; a teacher and two small girls would surely be home at teatime. I tried for some days, never getting a reply.

So I phoned him at work. He said "Do come. But it's strange, the phone works, the wife yakks on it all evening.".

I arrived, He had investigated. The small girls had been standing on the windowsill, They had broken the wire leading to the bell itself, easily restored.

But what annoyed him most was that the aforesaid yakking had been entirely at his expense, rather than the usual 50% of it.

The OP should investigate whether the final ringing system itself is capable of ringing.

[Roger Mills]

I've now cancelled Monday's engineer appointment, because I'm now back home and won't be at the flat again until January, but I laid it on the line with the Indian gentleman to whom I spoke that I expected them to investigate their network anyway, because I was 99.99% convinced that the problem wasn't at my end. He kept insisting that they had checked the line and found no fault. I kept insisting that their automated test only tested continuity to my master socket, and *not* ring function - and that they had not *physically* checked anything at the exchange. In the end, he reluctantly agreed to update the fault record with a note asking for a physical check at the exchange. I'm not holding my breath!

I can check remotely whether it's been fixed because if my answering machine answers, I shall know that it's receiving ringtone. If it hasn't been fixed, I shall report it again shortly before I go back in order to be there when the engineer arrives.

[Roger Mills]

Your story probably relates to the days of hard-wired telephones and bells wired in series.

I don't have a "final ringing system" other than a phone. And when a phone which is known to be good (tested on a neighbour's line) fails to ring when plugged into the master's test socket - with or without an ADSL filter - what more do you suggest that I do?

[dennis]

Buy a Rpi and a modem.. detect incoming caller id and then play ringing through a speaker attached to the pi. 8-)

[Roger Mills]

Great! But how can I make the answering machine answer?

[Graham.]

He wouldn't need anything so spohisticated, as he wouldnt need to decode the data or even detect the actual FSK tones with a PLL.

All the circuit would need to do is to detect any audio on the line when it is in an on-hook condition.

Actually, given a few seconds more thought it's even simpler than that. There is a polarity reversal on the line so a diode, integrator network and DC amp is all you need.

I'm pretty sure the polarity reversal is present even if CLID isn't provisioned.

It certinly was in my phreaking days when I was at school.

[Chris Davies]

Are (were) there any modems that really actually reported BT-style CLI? Chris

[Dave Saville]

Mine does. Old Accura voice/fax modem.