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Why do my PTT phones ring at my house, but not at other's?

Started by Karen, June 01, 2012, 12:26:38 AM

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Karen

If I fix it and sell it, and its ringing here, why on earth would it NOT ring for the person who is getting it in the mail.  This has happened twice now. And only with PTTs.

AE_Collector

Probably a lot of possible answers to this question.

How are you testing the ringer? On your phone line at your house? Make certain that your phone jacks don't have a ground connected to the yellow lead. Many phones come with the bells connected from either Tip or Ring to ground (yellow). If your phone jacks have ground connected to them, phones that are wired this way will ring at your house but not at most other houses out there as this is a hold over from old the party line days.

Other possibilities are people using VOIP adapters for their phone line. Many of these adapters don't provide enough ringing current to work mechanical ringers as they assume everyone has phones with little electronic alerters in them now.

Terry

Karen

I guess Im a little confused by what you mean with my home lines having a ground connected to them.  To test my phones I just have a little homemade get-up with a Mod jack with YGRB, in that order. 

Is that... wrong?  Seems to work for all my other phones I test.

jsowers

Karen, to simulate what would be in your customer's house, only use red and green and don't connect the yellow or black wires of the phone to your line. Yellow is ground and if you have ground connected to your phone line and the customer doesn't, then it could definitely ring at your house and not theirs. Just use red and green.

Then if your phone doesn't ring, you can fix it before it gets to the customer. Normally all that's required, at least on WE phones, is to move the black ringer wire to the same screw as the green wire of the mounting cord.

And what Terry said about VOIP adapters is also worth asking about ahead of time. If someone is wanting to buy a phone, then tell them up front that VOIP may not work with an older mechanical ringer and also a rotary dial. It depends on the adapter.
Jonathan

LarryInMichigan

On all of my Dutch PTT phones, the ringer was not connected to the L1 and L2 terminals, so a jumper was needed.  I do not recall which terminals needed the jumper.  The terminals are numbered.

Larry

AE_Collector

#5
Yes it looks as though you are plugging the cord of your test jack set up into the wall jack at your house and could well be using ground to ring your phones. As Jonathan said, only ever use green and red. When was your house built? Around here if a house were built much earlier than 1990 it could easily have ground connected at the wall jacks.

Terry

stub

Karen ,
          Here's what I use to check my phones and ringers with. The cord is about 3 ft. long.
           Just clip out the yellow and black wires from your test plug.   stub
Kenneth Stubblefield

Doug Rose

I had one waiting for refurb, so I did it this morning. Third post is red, fourth is green fifth is strapped to green on fourth. Took me awhile to get lucky on this.....Doug
Kidphone

Karen

Wow, just red and green huh?  So why are there yellow and black wires if they arent needed for anything?  I would assume leaving out the yellow would make the phone not work somehow.  I'll have to give it a shot. I got a beautiful PTT today and we'll see how it goes.

jsowers -- I do always mention the digital phone service, voip thing to customers.  They know.

LarryInMichigan -- I have two of them bridged too, but I cant remember off hand which.  I think Ill need to get some more pics up tomorrow when I work on the new PTT

AE_collector -- My house was built in the late 70s I think.

Stub--  I would try that, but to be honest, I dont even know what a capacitor is.  Might I have one that would work from a 500?

Doug-- seems like every PTT I wire is different!  With the 500s you can just scootch things around with your eyes shut but these phones are testy!


Sooo... really, just green and red huh.  Should I not connect anything BUT green and red in the phone when I send it off, or is this just for testing??  And if its just for testing, wouldnt it ruin it again when I hook them on after Ive tested? (specifically for PTTs)

dsk

Hi, all this is a result of development, on one side a need of standards vs. the need of options.
The simplest standard, and most common is just using the 2 wires. The other ones was used for several purposes, and could change from house to hose. Grounded ringing, party line systems, ground start, series ringers, ground register recall (Early variant of flash), and power for light to the illuminated dials are among the most used need of extra wires. After deregulation, the specialities was less used, and 2 wires became common all over the world.

If you wire the telephone to work on only 2 wires, it will work in almost all homes with a regular telephone service. (Pulse to tone converter may be needed) 

dsk

AE_Collector

It is ga good idea to ensure that the black and yellow leads of your set cord are NOT shorted together in the phone as well. IE: both stored under the same unused screw. Best to seperately insulate and stoire them. If you short them together inside the phone one of your customres will eventually discover thet the second line at their house goes dead when they plug the phone in that they got from you or the light in their princess phone quits working.

Terry

Phonesrfun

Yes, never, never, ever use the black and yellow wires when selling phones to others.  Their only purpose is to be there in case other services are used.  As Terry said, the most common use is a second line, and the black and yellow wires in the line cord are the second pair of wires and are usually connected to the second pair of wires running through the house. 

Since the yellow and black pair usually have spade tips on them, it is a natural tendency to want to connect them to something.  If you cannot find two extra unused terminals, then you need to tape them separately so the tips can't come in contact with anything else which could cause static or other problems.  I generally just snip the yellow and black wires off entirely.

The only safe assumption to make when you are selling a phone is that the buyer will have a straight phone line, which is only used on pair #1, with the ringer and it's capacitor bridged across that pair.

Karen, your home would still seem that it is wired for older party-line service, where the yellow wire was used as a ground for divided party line ringing.

Back in the olden days there were phone installers who kept all this straight, and that was part of their job.  The truth is that even though the line cord colors are the same, there are really two wiring standards at work here, and there are many houses that are still wired for party line.

A phone wired as a straight phone will work fine when connected to a jack wired for party line, but a phone wired for party line service won't ring on a house jack that is wired to the new normal configuration.

-Bill G

DavePEI

Ok, now here's a related question. When WE and NE refurbed phones, they stowed unused line cord terminals inside clear/gray plastic covers which fit the spade terminals, slipping over them and insulating them. Much better than tape. Anyone now a source of these?

Dave
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twocvbloke

Personally I use heat-shrink tubing to insulate unused wires, as you can shrink it to fit cut wires, spade plugs and other terminals on wires... :)

Also helps neaten the ends of wires where the unused wire(s) has been cut back... :)

Karen

The sound quality always seems scratchy on 500s until i put the black wire on that screw behind the yellow.

When I do that its perfect.  I feel like if I dont then I have to tell every customer, the sound quality is crap.