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shorted out phone line re
Oktokie:
O I am having a telephone problem - phone line has shorted out somewhere O and my phone is always busy. I've looked everywhere to find the problem O but it's out of my hand now. I am going to call in repair service and O since it's due to my house's wiring problem...that they will charge me O for it. O O Who should I call? Is there's another option other than calling my phone O company? I think it will be expensive job looking for shorted wiring in O my house You would call the phone company's repair service, though you may wish to consult an independent telephone contractor. Before doing so do a couple of quick checks. Borrow a working phone from a friend/neighbour (at this point all of your's are suspect). Go to where the phoneline comes into your home, on the inside. It may be near the electrical service panel. If somewhat new (built or updated in the past three decades) you'll have a phone jack. This is called a "demarc[ation] point" and everything outside that point is the phone company's problem but everything inside is your's (assuming you don't have a repair contract with the phone company). Unplug the line cord to the demarc. It should be similar to telephone line cords on your telephones: push up on the little tab and slip out. You have now disconnected your phones from the telephone company. Wait about a minute, then plug in the borrowed phone. If you hear a dial tone the problem is in your home, if not, the problem is the telephone company's. (If you don't hear a dial tone wait another 10 minutes -- I've heard of some systems taking several minutes to re-activate a line that has been off-hook for some time.) If no dial tone after the 10 minutes then (use someone else's!) phone to call repair. You should not get charged as the fault is one their side of the demarc. OK, so if you get a dial tone, now what? Well, the fun begins! You can either begin by disconnecting ALL telephone devices: telephones, answering machine, Caller IDs, TiVo's, medical equipment that gets monitored by telephone.... then using the borrowed phone to plug in and test. Oh -- reconnect that line at the demarc!! Test by adding one device at a time. When the phone line goes dead you've found your culprit. (Uhh, you have checked to make sure all phones are on-hook properly, right? We had one phone here which was picky about being hung up correctly. It looked like it was on the base properly....) Another option would be to disconnect a phone/device at a time and check for a dialtone -- I've done both. Let's see.. other quirkies. Any pets? They could have chewed on a line cord, shorting out. I've heard of cordless phone batteries dialing 911 when they get weak.... - ¯ barry.martinþATþthesafebbs.zeppole.com ® * Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to other and says "Dam!" --- þ RoseReader 2.52á P003186 þ The Safe BBS þ Bettendorf, IA 563-359-1971 --- þ RIMEGate(tm)/RGXMod V1.13 at BBSWORLD * |
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shorted out phone line re
"barry martin" wrote in message news:1756778615.2065.96.5986901.1403464228.RIMEGat ... Oktokie: O I am having a telephone problem - phone line has shorted out somewhere O and my phone is always busy. I've looked everywhere to find the problem O but it's out of my hand now. I am going to call in repair service and O since it's due to my house's wiring problem...that they will charge me O for it. O O Who should I call? Is there's another option other than calling my phone O company? I think it will be expensive job looking for shorted wiring in (tm)/RGXMod V1.13 at BBSWORLD * I had this problem several years ago. Turned out that a small patch cord (maybe 6" long with phone jack ends on each end) had gone bad. Before I figured it out, I took the liberty of rewiring every phone jack in the house... A long frustrating weekend, that was... |
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