home landline has a problem in that the caller hears the ring tone but it never gets answered. That’s because my phone doesn’t ring! Called BT and they asked me to try another handset, which I’ve now done. I can see the incoming number on the panel but again, no ring noise. I can answer and talk to the caller if I know they are there – me in this last case!

A friend has said that he got a BT engineering fault message when he tried earlier in the week. The line test from BT was fine. I’m confused as to why the phones aren’t making a noise!!

Anyone help?

Do you have more than one phone plugged in? The line will only power so many ringers, plug too many phones in and it goes quiet.

I’m not a BT engineer though.

no, only one phone and its worked fine for months…thanks for the try though!

Could it be on call divert?

try #21# to remove.

Can you make outgoing calls?

If so have you rung a mobile to see that its your line your on?

supertacky – not call divert and yes, making outgoing calls is fine which is why I guess it never dawned on me that there was a problem. Rang the mobile and yes, home number comes up

CB, find you main socket. It should have a removable front plate. Unscrew the front plate and plu your phone into the socket that is revealed behind the front one. Try ringing you home phone from mobile.

If it doesnt ring its either you phone thats faulty or there is a line fault.

At this point you can try a proven working phone in the back box and try ringing again.

Still nothing?

Report it to you service provider and get a line fault raised. At least at this point youve proved that nothing in your house is faulty and charges wont apply for the call out.

Yeh confirm its not your extensions, as above, and then report it. Although a lot of sockets are older versions and don’t have the test socket, something the call centres can’t comprehend. You get some very confused customers that have dismantled their sockets at the request of someone following a script and not listening to the customer.

Its a common fault, aka ‘ring trip’

OK – the box is in the loft as we recently (2 months or so) had the engineer in to fit infinity. I’ll try and find the connection under the front plate. I know the phones are physically working as I’ve plugged them into our other home landline.

Thanks for the help

All I can remember is that ringing voltage is -50v. That probably doesn’t help though.

I thought it was 40v?

It’s enough to smart when you’ve got your hand in a PC with an analogue modem in it and someone rings, I know that much. Though, it doesn’t smart as much as the gouges in the back of your hand sustained from the solder buckets of adjacent PCI cards when you tear your hand out in a hurry.

(Lost… everyone… )

Normal line voltage is -50Volts rising to 90 Volts AC during ringing. Yes it hurts like hell when you get your hand rung…haha

The main socket has a capacitor inside it that filters the ringing AC current out and allows the phone to ring.

Hence the advise above^.

Lots of ringing problems exist in extension wiring.

Its important to check this as its a big charge for a tech to come out and repair this.

India on the line…

supertacky is correct. ISDNs are 100 or 110v I think. Not fun hanging off a pole in the rain, getting buzzed every couple of minutes!

It’s been a long time since I was in an exchange, fair enough. Used to have to test circuits on the MDF with an LED on a plug. I was forever getting shocks on the back of my hand. Painful.

Have a look on the phone you may have the ringer switched off.

Telex worked on about 80v both legs and when I was a PTO the megger we used gave out about 500V dc, accidentally caught many a faultsman jointer with that one

Back to the OP, yes it needs reporting via your CP, not so sure it’s RTP having read the thread again, that usually cuts off after one ring hence the name. The ringing tone you hear is generated from the exchange back to the caller and doesn’t mean the phone is ringing at the distant end.

Could be a multitude of faults and all you can do is make sure you have proved it away from your premises otherwise its 130 quid

OK – I seem to be off the hook with threats of me having tp pay for the engineer. Booked for Friday.

Thanks all.

Is there an easy to understand explanation of ‘ring trip’?

Ring trip faults rings once then trips,rectified loop or damp socket/wiring,it sounds like internal problem,must check in main nte(socket) in test plug with a known working corded phone.if still faulty check wiring outside is it fed via a pole?or underground? Check all wirng up to where it leaves property if damaged u can still be charged for damage isdn2 lines run from 95v to 99v .thats £130 please good luck

hi had same problem last year,dial 17070 for automated test on line,go for option 1 put down phone and it will dial you back,having tested your line,our fault was at the exchange.good luck

For the really old engineers amongst you, howabout finding a ringing problem on a Plan 4.

Worst shock I ever got was working on a Telex line right out in the wilds, it was still on open wires (due to distance from exchange) on a short pole so had my ladder at full extension with head between wires in the peeing rain, when the wind blew the wires against my head. Luckily I had my belt around the pole and as it was close to the road had used the ladder instead of my spikes (saved for big trudges across fields etc) saw one hell of a flash and nearly came off as it was. Now buzzbars and shocks is a whole new set of stories..

not so sure it’s RTP having read the thread again, that usually cuts off after one ring hence the name

My bad, I don’t touch that dirty old copper anymore, just old brittle/fragile fibre. Microbends and dodgy splicing is where its at now 🙂

Plan 4 was if I remember correctly jacks 95a max of 4 and bell set 26 on the end in case no phone plugged in.
If you wanted a real challenge try faulting on an HES or large collection of key and lamp units with P/W’s connected that used balanced battery signalling.

This last bit is not amusing given it did end fatally on at least one occasion, good part of my time was spent as a works supervisor and less than pleasant when one of the contractors hit a UG power cable

I dreaded Key and Lamp systems luckily there wasn’t many on my patch apart from a beast of one at a local bookies. HES4’s were plenty thou, forgotten about them dodgy contacts in the next station down the chain being the usual fault.