Ask Me Help Desk - Landline phone wiring

Today, out of the blue, by home phone began to have problems with incoming calls. If you are calling the house, you will hear a partial ring, then lot's of static. Eventually the line will disconnect. If you are in the house and pick up the phone, after the initial partial ring, the call will connect and everytthing is fine; no problems with dialing out, either.

I connected a "good" phone to the outside test jack and all works fine, for incoming and outgoing calls. I then unplugged all inside phone jacks and phone electrical supplies, tried calling the home line and still received a partial ring, static and eventual disconnect.

Any sugesstions as to what might be the problem or what to do next?

Thanks in advance.

Do you by chance have a monitored alarm system installed at your house?

Another possibility is a modem in a computer or fax machine that is not behaving properly.

Your phone lines run off a voltage. Its about 50volts DC. This voltage is what powers your telephone as long as its one that doesn't plug into the wall. You may have a bad line in your home that is causing electrical noise which will interrupt the voltage and cause similar problems. The best thing to do is to first contact the telephone company and have them do a test on your line up to your home. They should do that for free. If they test and all is well then its some wiring from the junction box to the inside of the house. Before testing make sure nothing is plugged in to the phone line. Fax and modems will sometimes autoanswer or inhibit testing.

Here is a bit of info about telephone wiring. There is usually about 2 to 4 solid wires that will run from an outside junction box to the jack inside the home. They are twisted a bit which helps prevent interference from the adjacent lines and other noise sources the wire may sit next to.
Now when your telephone company sends a caller to to you via their switchboard a ringing voltage is placed on the wire. If your touch it you will get a shock as its an AC voltage that causes a plunger to strike back and forth a bell inside most older phones and the newer phones just detect the voltage and cause a speaker to wail instead. Now I suspect that you have dirty contacts somewhere in your house or perhaps at the junction box. A broken line will also cause a problem. If you have a broken line you will have intermittent contact until the current reaches maximum then the wire will disconnect. This happens a lot with wiring in homes as mice and other things will damage wires. The phone company repair man has testing devices that will check for these things and if you ask nicely sometimes they will check it for you. If all else fails you need to contact the phone company and pay the professional to come out and diagnose the problem.
I have installed telephone and internet and used use those fancy devices.

Good luck.

Steve C.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dw2

Do you by chance have a monitored alarm system installed at your house?

Another possibility is a modem in a computer or fax machine that is not behaving properly.

Sorry, no alarm system, fax or cable modem (I use broadband Cable)

Thanks,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve_C

Your phone lines run off of a voltage. Its about 50volts DC. This voltage is what powers your telephone as long as its one that doesn't plug into the wall. You may have a bad line in your home that is causing electrical noise which will interrupt the voltage and cause similar problems. The best thing to do is to first contact the telephone company and have them do a test on your line up to your home. They should do that for free. If they test and all is well then its some wiring from the junction box to the inside of the house. Before testing make sure nothing is plugged in to the phone line. Fax and modems will sometimes autoanswer or inhibit testing.

Here is a bit of info about telephone wiring. There is usually about 2 to 4 solid wires that will run from an outside junction box to the jack inside the home. they are twisted a bit which helps prevent interference from the adjacent lines and other noise sources the wire may sit next to.
Now when your telephone company sends a caller to to you via their switchboard a ringing voltage is placed on the wire. If your touch it you will get a shock as its an AC voltage that causes a plunger to strike back and forth a bell inside most older phones and the newer phones just detect the voltage and cause a speaker to wail instead. Now I suspect that you have dirty contacts somewhere in your house or perhaps at the junction box. A broken line will also cause a problem. If you have a broken line you will have intermittent contact until the current reaches maximum then the wire will disconnect. This happens a lot with wiring in homes as mice and other things will damage wires. The phone company repair man has testing devices that will check for these things and if you ask nicely sometimes they will check it for you. If all else fails you need to contact the phone company and pay the professional to come out and diagnose the problem.
I have installed telephone and internet and used use those fancy devices.

Good luck.

Steve C.

Thanks, As I said I already tested the phone at the outside junction box with the test jack. System working fine. There is obviously a short somewhere. Key point is when all phones are disconnected and phone is called the caller still hears the halfring and then static and disconnect. Can't seem to figure out which line that is causing the problem. Want to figure out issue without rewiring house and without calling repair man. I too used to intall phones years ago. I guess if I had a test signal to hook up at the box I could use an amp meter on each line to see if I could identify the problem line, but I do not have a test signal. I guess I could also attempt to trace the line for junction areas under the house and disconnect (farthest first) to see where the problem is. Any further diagnostic suggestions?

Thanks,

When I pick up receiver of my landline phone I can hear songs and some conversation is going on just like radio. Please tell me what's the cause..

pratikac, you should start your own post.
Can you dial out and call someone, and do you receive calls?