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

In article ,
TheScullster wrote:

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.

[snip]

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.

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

--
Tony Williams.

TheScullster wrote:
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.
snip
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.

Unplugging the extensions indicates probably not.

Tony Williams said:

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


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

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

"TheScullster" wrote in
:

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.

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...

--
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

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


Not within the last month or so!

Rod said:
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.

No tone at all before or after dialling!

"Capitol" said:
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.

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

"TheScullster" wrote in message
...

"Capitol" said:
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.

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?

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.

On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 08:50:09 +0100, "TheScullster"
wrote:


"Capitol" said:
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.

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?

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

"dennis@home" said:

Did you try dialling even though there was no tone?

Yes but without success

It is possible that the dial tone generator card was duff.

At the exchange?

This would have been fixed quite quickly.

As quickly as while we were talking on the line?

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

This is on the supplier side I take it?


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.

Thanks Dennis

Phil

TheScullster wrote:

"Capitol" said:

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.


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?


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

On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 14:09:12 +0100, TheScullster wrote:

It is possible that the dial tone generator card was duff.

At the exchange?

This would have been fixed quite quickly.

As quickly as while we were talking on the line?

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.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

"Capitol" said:
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.

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

Thanks Capitol

Phil

"TheScullster" wrote in message
...

"dennis@home" said:

Did you try dialling even though there was no tone?

Yes but without success

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.

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