Transmitter Question When Using Long Cords

[MrKenmore]

Hi everyone!  Here is my situation.  I have many old phones.  500 sets, trimlines, rotary and touch tone.  All the phones go to my VOIP Linksys PAP-2 adapter.  ViaTalk is the provider.  I also use a Mitel Smart 1 to convert pulse dialing to touch tone. 

I find that when I have a long handset cord, the volume the person at the other end hears is very low.  Short cords do not have this problem (although i wish the output was better).  All my transmitters are new replacement carbon transmitters.  I believe the network is supposed to make accommodations based on cord length.  Is there anything I can do to still use the long cords and have decent voice output?  What about a dynamic transmitter?  Can that be retrofitted?

Thanks. 

[Owain]

What sort of cords are you using?

Modern tinsel and modular connectors have quite a high resistance compared to the older heavier cords and screw terminals.

Your PAP2 might have settings for its transmit gain to be adjusted or might not be providing enough talk battery current.

[MrKenmore]

The cords are new but spade terminals.  I do have one that is modular.  I still have the problem and this is a newer cord I purchased from Phoneco. 

[Phonesrfun]

I have Internet phone service from my cable provider and I have C*Net.  Both use an ATA, and I have never experienced any difference between using a long handset cord versus a short handset cord.  The difference, of course would be in the resistance of the cord itself, provided all other things were constant, including the condition of the transmitter.

Old fashioned POTS service used nominally 48 volts for the DC talk power, and the ATA's typically use 24 volts. That smaller voltage is normally not a problem, since with an ATA the loop length is is only a few feet to the ATA and not a few miles as was the case in a central office environment.

Your problem seems perplexing. 

[HowardPgh]

Be careful the coiled cords can scramble your speech. (Just kidding!)
Howard

There may actually be something to the log cord thing, but I think it may be a function of the condition  of the crimp terminals and their connections to the rest of the phone.  A little corrosion goes a long way.

[Owain]

Old fashioned POTS service used nominally 48 volts for the DC talk power, and the ATA's typically use 24 volts. That smaller voltage is normally not a problem, since with an ATA the loop length is is only a few feet to the ATA and not a few miles as was the case in a central office environment.

Carbon transmitters should work down to about 10 V or less.

I wonder if the problem is one of current rather than voltage. This article goes into detail about loop current
http://www.sandman.com/loopcur.html
the ATA may not be supplying enough current, it might even be faulty?

[MrKenmore]

I really appreciated everyone's input.  The big thing that confuses me is that I have some new regular style phones that I got from an office a few years back.  They have a plug in transformer.  When I use that as my phone with the ATA the person on the other end hears me great.  It's when I use any of my WE phones and especially the long handset cord WE phones where I have this problem whe the other person complains they can barely hear me.   I have verified this as well having someone call me from the WE phones to an outside number.   

[Owain]

there's a loop current below which carbons become insensitive.

On the other hand, there can be a line voltage below which electronics stop working too.

[MrKenmore]

And I assume the newer "electronic" phone makes the necessary adjustments for these deficiencies. I'll take some readings as the sandman article suggested. 

[MrKenmore]

Unfortunately my tester for mA is not working properly.  I had another meter that tested the DC V.  The on hook was a solid 48V as I expected.  The off hook was 3V.  I was expecting higher.  This reading was taken with a WE 500 rotary set.  On the newer "office phone" (Nortel Networks made in 1999) I get 5V with it dipping to 4V every so often.

[dsk]

I guess we all agree in this shouldn't happend. The voltage drop (cord resistance) should be relatively low compaired with the resistance of the transmitter. I hope you are sure about the termination of the cords, did you  test the same telephones with ordinary cords?

Could you please test a well known working telephone and just put in a resistor of 100- 220 ohms in series with one line cord. This should normally work with a few Db signal loss, but not making problems.

dsk