Whenever there is significant rain or wet snow before the ground has
frozen, the dial tone is accompanied by an annoying hum. Calls can go
out and be received, but it is extremely difficult for parties at
either end to hear. Also, when this occurs, I cannot connect to the
Internet. 10-12 hours later when conditions are dry, the phone works
OK. Diagnosis? Treatment? Thanks

JW wrote:
Whenever there is significant rain or wet snow before the ground has
frozen, the dial tone is accompanied by an annoying hum. Calls can go
out and be received, but it is extremely difficult for parties at
either end to hear. Also, when this occurs, I cannot connect to the
Internet. 10-12 hours later when conditions are dry, the phone works
OK. Diagnosis? Treatment? Thanks



I saw this on X-Files once. The smoking man is behind it.

JW wrote:
Whenever there is significant rain or wet snow before the ground has
frozen, the dial tone is accompanied by an annoying hum. Calls can go
out and be received, but it is extremely difficult for parties at
either end to hear. Also, when this occurs, I cannot connect to the
Internet. 10-12 hours later when conditions are dry, the phone works
OK. Diagnosis? Treatment? Thanks


\
sounds like you have an open in the ground somewhere. Is the line
in conduit or direct buried? You might make sure it's grounded too,
at the service panel.


Rich
--
"You can lead them to LINUX
but you can't make them THINK"
Linux user #291570
Remove "nospam" to email

JW wrote:

Whenever there is significant rain or wet snow before the ground has
frozen, the dial tone is accompanied by an annoying hum. Calls can go
out and be received, but it is extremely difficult for parties at
either end to hear. Also, when this occurs, I cannot connect to the
Internet. 10-12 hours later when conditions are dry, the phone works
OK. Diagnosis? Treatment? Thanks

You've got water getting into line somewhere creating a partial
short...start w/ connection box. Can be as simple as a staple through
insulation....

I had a similar problem. It turned out that there was an egg sack or cocoon
from some sort of bug or spider strung across the terminals in the
connection box on the side of my house. Whenever it rained the cocoon would
soak up water and cause problems for a day or 2 until it dried up. Note that
the lid on my connection box would not close tightly and would allow water
to run down the phone lines into the box.

Kevin



"JW" wrote in message
...
Whenever there is significant rain or wet snow before the ground has
frozen, the dial tone is accompanied by an annoying hum. Calls can go
out and be received, but it is extremely difficult for parties at
either end to hear. Also, when this occurs, I cannot connect to the
Internet. 10-12 hours later when conditions are dry, the phone works
OK. Diagnosis? Treatment? Thanks

"JW" wrote in message
...
Whenever there is significant rain or wet snow before the ground has
frozen, the dial tone is accompanied by an annoying hum. Calls can go
out and be received, but it is extremely difficult for parties at
either end to hear. Also, when this occurs, I cannot connect to the
Internet. 10-12 hours later when conditions are dry, the phone works
OK. Diagnosis? Treatment? Thanks

I used to get all of the 800 calls to American Express for lost cards when
it rained. I called the phone company and they blew me off. The next time
it happened I called AE and explained the problem to them, they have a local
office in my town. They did not believe me. So I got the guy to use his
cell phone and call the 800 number. When I answered, well they got the phone
company to fix the problem.

As others have said water will create a low grade ground. Now all you have
to do is find it. Check the protector and then the problem is on the phone
companies side. Good luck. Complain when it does not work and get them out
then as they may never find it when it is dry.

The treatment is to check for the hum where the line first enters the
house. If it's present there, which it likely is, then it's the
telco's problem and you should call them to have it fixed. Hums are
quite common and ofter the result of a bad ground somewhere.

Yes and no. If you open the line where
it enters the home and connect
a phone there, that will isolate the
inside from the outside. Newer houses
have a modular disonnect where the
service enters the house. So if a
phone connected here hums when it is
wet, it is a telco problem. BTW, all
grounds
on the phone line are "bad grounds,"
except, of course, for the ground applied
at the central office. An external
ground unbalances the otherwise "balanced
line and causes 60Hz to be induced into
the line. A ground leak could be just
about anywhere; underground, in a
connection box, in a crawl space, etc.

wrote:
The treatment is to check for the hum where the line first enters the
house. If it's present there, which it likely is, then it's the
telco's problem and you should call them to have it fixed. Hums are
quite common and ofter the result of a bad ground somewhere.

"JW" wrote in message
...
Whenever there is significant rain or wet snow before the ground has
frozen, the dial tone is accompanied by an annoying hum. Calls can go
out and be received, but it is extremely difficult for parties at
either end to hear. Also, when this occurs, I cannot connect to the
Internet. 10-12 hours later when conditions are dry, the phone works
OK. Diagnosis? Treatment? Thanks

First is to determine if it is your problem of the phone company. Most
homes have a box outside that you can get into. This is where the house
connects to the telephone company lines. Disconnect the house and plug a
phone in directly. Is the hum still there? If so, call the phone company
and let them worry about it. If not, it is in your house phone wiring.

Assuming it is in your house, look of any no longer used jacks or perhaps
cut wires that would be affected by moisture or water. This could be an old
unused line in the basement or garage. Disconnects the phones one by one
and see if that stop sit. If so that phone is the problem or the connector
it is using. This is based on my experience with similar problems. Once it
was a portable phone, another time is was where a jack was cut off and the
wires just cut, not terminated properly and moisture (coupled with some
corrosion) caused a mild short in very humid weather.

That is very basic and as far as I can go with the diagnosis. A pro has all
sorts of equipment to find these things. If it is your house, you may do
better calling an independent guy rather than the phone company as they are
usually $$$ cheaper.

It's humming because it doesn't know the words.

mike wrote:

It's humming because it doesn't know the words.

You must have watched the Letterman rerun last night...

"JW" wrote in message
...

the dial tone is accompanied by an annoying hum. Calls can go out and
be received, but it is extremely difficult for parties at either end to
hear.

Sounds exactly like the problem we had at a house we used to live in. We had
overhead lines and lots of squirrels, the squirrels would chew through the
cables and when it rained it shorted across the circuits, at times we could
even hear neighbors conversations (WOW!).
The phone company (Southwestern Bell) was pretty good at replacing the
chewed line when it happened which was quite regularly. RM ~

"JW" wrote in message
...
Whenever there is significant rain or wet snow before the ground has
frozen, the dial tone is accompanied by an annoying hum. Calls can go
out and be received, but it is extremely difficult for parties at
either end to hear. Also, when this occurs, I cannot connect to the
Internet. 10-12 hours later when conditions are dry, the phone works
OK. Diagnosis? Treatment? Thanks



My brother-in-law's phone did that right before he went to prison. It quit
right after he got arrested.

Steve

Worn insulation on one of the outdoor wires.
Call the phone company and ask for service.

--

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
www.mormons.com


"JW" wrote in message
...
Whenever there is significant rain or wet snow before the ground has
frozen, the dial tone is accompanied by an annoying hum. Calls can go
out and be received, but it is extremely difficult for parties at
either end to hear. Also, when this occurs, I cannot connect to the
Internet. 10-12 hours later when conditions are dry, the phone works
OK. Diagnosis? Treatment? Thanks

JW wrote:

Whenever there is significant rain or wet snow before the ground has
frozen, the dial tone is accompanied by an annoying hum. Calls can go
out and be received, but it is extremely difficult for parties at
either end to hear. Also, when this occurs, I cannot connect to the
Internet. 10-12 hours later when conditions are dry, the phone works
OK. Diagnosis? Treatment? Thanks




We had exactly this problem in our home a few years ago. We'd get an
annoying hum when it rained, but only on "electronic" phones, ones which
needed power from a wall wart to work all their fancy functions. The
couple of old style non-electronic phones in the house didn't hum at all.

The problem was a "common mode" 60 Hz signal on the incoming phone
lines, probably leakage from the power lines on the poles to the phone
lines.

I put my scope on 'em and there was about a 30 volt p-p 60 Hz signal
relative to ground on all the phone wires when the weather was wet.

The technical explanation for why the electronic phones hummed was that
they didn't have enough "common mode rejection" on their phone input.

The phone company tried switching our lines to different pairs in their
cables, but that wasn't helpful, so we switched our phones over to
Comcast, who also supplies our cable TV and internet service. Been fine
since then.

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia

(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)

"Truth exists; only falsehood has to be invented."

SQLit wrote:

I used to get all of the 800 calls to American Express for lost cards when
it rained. I called the phone company and they blew me off. The next time
it happened I called AE and explained the problem to them, they have a local
office in my town. They did not believe me. So I got the guy to use his
cell phone and call the 800 number. When I answered, well they got the phone
company to fix the problem.

Boy, did you blow a money making opportunity!

They say when opportunity knocks, open the door. You had it calling
you up!

or

Talk about saving for a rainy day!

R

JW wrote:

Whenever there is significant rain or wet snow before the ground has
frozen, the dial tone is accompanied by an annoying hum. Calls can go
out and be received, but it is extremely difficult for parties at
either end to hear. Also, when this occurs, I cannot connect to the
Internet. 10-12 hours later when conditions are dry, the phone works
OK. Diagnosis? Treatment? Thanks


We had a problem with loud static on the telephone line after a
rain storm. The cause was that a tree branch had rubbed the
insulation off the wire from the house to the first telephone pole.

The problem stopped when the repair crew installed a new piece of
cable.