I've recently installed a trueCall Call Blocker, and have had some
problems with it not ringing when it should. Turned out a wired phone
wasn't ringing when I plugged that in to test things. Virgin Media
came out and run some tests at their Junction Box on the wall of my
house (JB1), and found a cable fault between their street JB and one
further away. They fixed that and the phone works ok now, but the
trueCall box still isn't behaving itself. The trueCall box is
connected to an extension socket (see below), then the cordless phone
basestation connects to it.

I've investigated the house telephone wiring, which has had quite a
few "unofficial" phone extension boxes added over the years but
there's one very odd thing:

From JB1 a cable runs through the house wall to the lounge and to a
master phone socket (2 wires to the A&B terminals). From the extension
connector in that socket another cable (Cable A) goes back to JB1
(1-blue/white, 3-orange, 5-white/blue). When I had VM broadband
installed I asked for a telephone extension to be added in the 2nd
floor study, together with the cable modem.
So in JB1 there's a VM installed black cable (Cable B) going up to the
second floor but only the blue/white and white/blue from Cable A are
connected to Cable B, the orange wire is just floating.
In the study Cable B is connected to a second master phone socket, the
two wires going to the A&B terminals.
All of the house phone extension sockets are then daisy chained from
the second master socket.

So effectively I have two master phone sockets in series, is this
likely to cause any problems?

In article ,
Davidm wrote:
I've recently installed a trueCall Call Blocker, and have had some
problems with it not ringing when it should. Turned out a wired phone
wasn't ringing when I plugged that in to test things. Virgin Media
came out and run some tests at their Junction Box on the wall of my
house (JB1), and found a cable fault between their street JB and one
further away. They fixed that and the phone works ok now, but the
trueCall box still isn't behaving itself. The trueCall box is
connected to an extension socket (see below), then the cordless phone
basestation connects to it.

I've investigated the house telephone wiring, which has had quite a
few "unofficial" phone extension boxes added over the years but
there's one very odd thing:

From JB1 a cable runs through the house wall to the lounge and to a
master phone socket (2 wires to the A&B terminals). From the extension
connector in that socket another cable (Cable A) goes back to JB1
(1-blue/white, 3-orange, 5-white/blue). When I had VM broadband
installed I asked for a telephone extension to be added in the 2nd
floor study, together with the cable modem.
So in JB1 there's a VM installed black cable (Cable B) going up to the
second floor but only the blue/white and white/blue from Cable A are
connected to Cable B, the orange wire is just floating.
In the study Cable B is connected to a second master phone socket, the
two wires going to the A&B terminals.
All of the house phone extension sockets are then daisy chained from
the second master socket.

So effectively I have two master phone sockets in series, is this
likely to cause any problems?


Older wired phones may require 3 wires to ring. Things like a base station
for cordless, only two. Assuming your socket is correctly wired, TrueCall
will work with either.

I've got a variety of phones installed here - from before the days of
cordless. So all the sockets wired for three wire types. And only one
master socket.

Snag I found with TrueCall plugged into only one phone, was some of the
others could ring briefly before TC intercepted the call.

So I had to do some re-wiring to have it where I wanted it, but fitted on
the incoming line before all of the phones.

Here are the standard colours of cable, flex and their terminals.

Terminal Cable Cord Function
1 Green/white Orange Spare
Blue 2 Blue/white Red B wire (Line) -50v
Brown 3 Orange/white Blue Shunt wire. (Bell)
Green 4 White/orange Green Local earth (Not usually used)
Orange 5 White/blue White A wire (Line) 0v
6 White/green Black Spare

--
*To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated, but not be able to say it.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Sun, 21 Jul 2019 13:05:39 +0100, Davidm wrote:
So effectively I have two master phone sockets in series, is this likely
to cause any problems?

It's not a correct installation, and might cause some issues with fault
reporting - though if VM installed it like that you're on solid ground
with getting them to fix it.
Having said that, it should work fine. Have you tried unhooking all the
extensions and plugging direct into one of the master sockets?

Mike

On Sun, 21 Jul 2019 13:05:39 +0100, Davidm
wrote:

I've recently installed a trueCall Call Blocker, and have had some
problems with it not ringing when it should. Turned out a wired phone
wasn't ringing when I plugged that in to test things. Virgin Media
came out and run some tests at their Junction Box on the wall of my
house (JB1), and found a cable fault between their street JB and one
further away. They fixed that and the phone works ok now, but the
trueCall box still isn't behaving itself. The trueCall box is
connected to an extension socket (see below), then the cordless phone
basestation connects to it.

I've investigated the house telephone wiring, which has had quite a
few "unofficial" phone extension boxes added over the years but
there's one very odd thing:

From JB1 a cable runs through the house wall to the lounge and to a
master phone socket (2 wires to the A&B terminals). From the extension
connector in that socket another cable (Cable A) goes back to JB1
(1-blue/white, 3-orange, 5-white/blue). When I had VM broadband
installed I asked for a telephone extension to be added in the 2nd
floor study, together with the cable modem.
So in JB1 there's a VM installed black cable (Cable B) going up to the
second floor but only the blue/white and white/blue from Cable A are
connected to Cable B, the orange wire is just floating.
In the study Cable B is connected to a second master phone socket, the
two wires going to the A&B terminals.
All of the house phone extension sockets are then daisy chained from
the second master socket.

So effectively I have two master phone sockets in series, is this
likely to cause any problems?
@Dave & Mike
Thanks, helpful information. For the moment I've disconnected the two
wires in Cable B from the second master socket (and insulated them -
they're indoors so no moisture risk), so that the only thing now
connected is the first master socket, and I'll run the trueCall from
that and see if it helps.
With 4 cordless phones around the house I probably don't need all
those wired extensions anyway. It's been an interesting learning
exercise
I also had an Orchid dialler connected, but have removed this for the
moment. That really needs to sit between the master socket and the
trueCall box, to handle routing of outgoing calls, but one thing at a
time!

Yes I have a truecall unit and am on Virgin. I chopped off the second master
and used a plug in lead to make the connection to the other rooms and it
works. Another little wheeze I learned of is to add a phone just before the
truecall, so I know when idiots ring once and put the phone down and can use
it to see if a number is revealed. Can be handy when idiots at nhs ring up
and think its an answerphone and put the phone down.

Brian

--
----- --
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Davidm" wrote in message
...
I've recently installed a trueCall Call Blocker, and have had some
problems with it not ringing when it should. Turned out a wired phone
wasn't ringing when I plugged that in to test things. Virgin Media
came out and run some tests at their Junction Box on the wall of my
house (JB1), and found a cable fault between their street JB and one
further away. They fixed that and the phone works ok now, but the
trueCall box still isn't behaving itself. The trueCall box is
connected to an extension socket (see below), then the cordless phone
basestation connects to it.

I've investigated the house telephone wiring, which has had quite a
few "unofficial" phone extension boxes added over the years but
there's one very odd thing:

From JB1 a cable runs through the house wall to the lounge and to a
master phone socket (2 wires to the A&B terminals). From the extension
connector in that socket another cable (Cable A) goes back to JB1
(1-blue/white, 3-orange, 5-white/blue). When I had VM broadband
installed I asked for a telephone extension to be added in the 2nd
floor study, together with the cable modem.
So in JB1 there's a VM installed black cable (Cable B) going up to the
second floor but only the blue/white and white/blue from Cable A are
connected to Cable B, the orange wire is just floating.
In the study Cable B is connected to a second master phone socket, the
two wires going to the A&B terminals.
All of the house phone extension sockets are then daisy chained from
the second master socket.

So effectively I have two master phone sockets in series, is this
likely to cause any problems?

Well, I would advise you to have at least one old fashioned line powered
phone on the truecall for when you get a power cut. truecall defaults to
straight through, so this should work fine.
Brian

--
----- --
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Davidm" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 21 Jul 2019 13:05:39 +0100, Davidm
wrote:

I've recently installed a trueCall Call Blocker, and have had some
problems with it not ringing when it should. Turned out a wired phone
wasn't ringing when I plugged that in to test things. Virgin Media
came out and run some tests at their Junction Box on the wall of my
house (JB1), and found a cable fault between their street JB and one
further away. They fixed that and the phone works ok now, but the
trueCall box still isn't behaving itself. The trueCall box is
connected to an extension socket (see below), then the cordless phone
basestation connects to it.

I've investigated the house telephone wiring, which has had quite a
few "unofficial" phone extension boxes added over the years but
there's one very odd thing:

From JB1 a cable runs through the house wall to the lounge and to a
master phone socket (2 wires to the A&B terminals). From the extension
connector in that socket another cable (Cable A) goes back to JB1
(1-blue/white, 3-orange, 5-white/blue). When I had VM broadband
installed I asked for a telephone extension to be added in the 2nd
floor study, together with the cable modem.
So in JB1 there's a VM installed black cable (Cable B) going up to the
second floor but only the blue/white and white/blue from Cable A are
connected to Cable B, the orange wire is just floating.
In the study Cable B is connected to a second master phone socket, the
two wires going to the A&B terminals.
All of the house phone extension sockets are then daisy chained from
the second master socket.

So effectively I have two master phone sockets in series, is this
likely to cause any problems?
@Dave & Mike
Thanks, helpful information. For the moment I've disconnected the two
wires in Cable B from the second master socket (and insulated them -
they're indoors so no moisture risk), so that the only thing now
connected is the first master socket, and I'll run the trueCall from
that and see if it helps.
With 4 cordless phones around the house I probably don't need all
those wired extensions anyway. It's been an interesting learning
exercise
I also had an Orchid dialler connected, but have removed this for the
moment. That really needs to sit between the master socket and the
trueCall box, to handle routing of outgoing calls, but one thing at a
time!

Brian Gaff brought next idea :
Well, I would advise you to have at least one old fashioned line powered
phone on the truecall for when you get a power cut. truecall defaults to
straight through, so this should work fine.

Good advice to have an ordinary phone, for emergencies and power cuts -
I have one, but with the ringer turned off.

Idea of the Truecall is to filter the calls, not let them straight
through unfiltered - letting just the calls through you want. If the
Truecall is built into the wireless phones, then calls would still get
through to the ordinary phone and cause it to ring, unless the ringer
is turned off.

In article ,
Brian Gaff wrote:
Well, I would advise you to have at least one old fashioned line powered
phone on the truecall for when you get a power cut. truecall defaults to
straight through, so this should work fine.

Yes it does. I fitted a switch in its DC power supply to disable it when
expecting a call it would block - like say from a hospital switchboard.
Quicker than doing it with their software.

--
*Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Sun, 21 Jul 2019 20:00:09 +0100, "Brian Gaff"
wrote:

Well, I would advise you to have at least one old fashioned line powered
phone on the truecall for when you get a power cut. truecall defaults to
straight through, so this should work fine.
Brian
Yes I have, it's not normally connected, but nearby in a drawer with a
torch. Plus of course we have mobiles.

on 22/07/2019, Dave Plowman (News) supposed :
Yes it does. I fitted a switch in its DC power supply to disable it when
expecting a call it would block - like say from a hospital switchboard.
Quicker than doing it with their software.

Does the hospital switchboard not present a number that you could
whitelist?

In article ,
Harry Bloomfield wrote:
on 22/07/2019, Dave Plowman (News) supposed :
Yes it does. I fitted a switch in its DC power supply to disable it
when expecting a call it would block - like say from a hospital
switchboard. Quicker than doing it with their software.

Does the hospital switchboard not present a number that you could
whitelist?

I've got the main one listed. But they may have outgoing lines which
appear as a different number to it.

--
*We are born naked, wet, and hungry. Then things get worse.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Mon, 22 Jul 2019 18:22:06 +0100, Davidm wrote:

Well, I would advise you to have at least one old fashioned line
powered phone on the truecall for when you get a power cut.
truecall
defaults to straight through, so this should work fine.

Yes I have, it's not normally connected, but nearby in a drawer with a
torch. Plus of course we have mobiles.

Mobile phone cell sites require mains, very few sites have battery
backup beyond a few hours, if that. Almost none have generators.
Expecting the mobile phone network(s) to work under power fail
conditions is a bit risky.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 23/07/2019 13:46, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Harry Bloomfield wrote:
on 22/07/2019, Dave Plowman (News) supposed :
Yes it does. I fitted a switch in its DC power supply to disable it
when expecting a call it would block - like say from a hospital
switchboard. Quicker than doing it with their software.

Does the hospital switchboard not present a number that you could
whitelist?

I've got the main one listed. But they may have outgoing lines which
appear as a different number to it.


If they have set up their hospital switchboard correctly, then
even the direct-inward-dialling numbers should only show the
main switchboard number on caller-id, and not the actual number
of that extension.

On 22/07/2019 18:22, Davidm wrote:
On Sun, 21 Jul 2019 20:00:09 +0100, "Brian Gaff"
wrote:

Well, I would advise you to have at least one old fashioned line powered
phone on the truecall for when you get a power cut. truecall defaults to
straight through, so this should work fine.
Brian
Yes I have, it's not normally connected, but nearby in a drawer with a
torch. Plus of course we have mobiles.


You should ring this number every so often to make sure ~60 volts
stops any high-resistance joints occurring (assuming this is a
broadband-only line).

Andrew wrote:

On 23/07/2019 13:46, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Harry Bloomfield wrote:
on 22/07/2019, Dave Plowman (News) supposed :
Yes it does. I fitted a switch in its DC power supply to disable it
when expecting a call it would block - like say from a hospital
switchboard. Quicker than doing it with their software.

Does the hospital switchboard not present a number that you could
whitelist?

I've got the main one listed. But they may have outgoing lines which
appear as a different number to it.


If they have set up their hospital switchboard correctly, then
even the direct-inward-dialling numbers should only show the
main switchboard number on caller-id, and not the actual number
of that extension.

That is one way to set it up, but not necessarily the"correct" one. If
an individual or a department with a receptionist, or only one outside
phone wants to they should be able to set up their own number for
presentation, so they can deal with their own calls.

--

Roger Hayter

In article ,
Andrew wrote:
If they have set up their hospital switchboard correctly, then
even the direct-inward-dialling numbers should only show the
main switchboard number on caller-id, and not the actual number
of that extension.

Fact remains that I have the official hospital number on the list, but
calls from it get blocked.

--
*Pride is what we have. Vanity is what others have.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.