On 09 May 2005, Jethro_uk wrote

Hi all,

we have a telephone service from Telewest (Birmingham). The Master
socket has an extension taken off it with wires 2,3 and 5. This
feeds 4 phones, all of which work perfectly.

Acquired a s/h Brother Fax-920 at the weekend, and went to plug it
into the socket which is last in the chain (#4). Doing this caused
Phone #2 to ring continuously. I swapped 2+5 at socket #4, and the
ringing went.

Now, however phones #2 and #3 don't ring (#1 and #4 - the fax
machine - do). Also, when I plug the BT "Relate 1000" back into
socket #4, then phone #2 rings continously. So either way the
socket is wired, causes a problem with phone #2, depending on
which phone is being used.

I have checked the continuity of wire 3 through the circuit, and
it's OK.

I tried swapping phone #2 out with another, but it didn't ring
either. As son as the fax machine was unplugged it rang !

Next step is to try at a friends house - see if the fax is kaput,
but I got it from work, where it worked on Thursday.

If anyone has any ideas, I'd be grateful ...

I think "ringer equivalents" affect the Telewest system the same as BT
-- maybe not; someone here will know.

Certainly, though, adding the fax has put more than the standard 4 RENs
on the system; that'd be my guess as to why the ringing is all screwed
up.

--
Cheers,
Harvey