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| Switching off my line for no ringing |
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| message from Lobster on 26 Jun 2005 |
In the Old Days, when we lived in a flat with one pulse-dial phone, when
we wanted to temporarily turn off the ringer you just clicked a switch
on the side of the phone, and Bob was your uncle.
These days, we have 3 DECT phones with answering machine plus a
hard-wired phone, and there's not even a facility for muting the ringing
on the DECTs.
So I'm wondering, how would I go about installing a switch in the line,
just on my side of the master socket[1], which would simply turn off the
line so that incoming callers would just get a ringing tone, and we
would hear nothing? I wouldn't want any risk of callers getting a
'number unobtainable' tone. Would I need to fool the system by
diverting it through a resistor or something?
Full details of how to do this would be much appreciated!
Thanks
David
[1] Now I think about it, I have a line-powered Orchid dialler on my
side of the master socket, so the swicth would need to be on the house
side of the dialler to avoid it becoming deprogrammed each time the line
was switched off - does that complicate things?
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| Alan J. Flavell replied to Lobster on 26 Jun 2005 |
Yes, KX-TCD200EB, base/charger and one handset £29.95 from Comet.
Seems to have lots of configuration features (I'm afraid I picked this
up pretty much at random, based on positive vibes for the manufacturer
name, without a detailed technical survey beforehand). You can even
put Greek and Cyrillic characters in the addressbook, it says (I
haven't tried it).
I've also successfully registered its handset to my old vtech base,
and the basic functions work, though of course the optional features
aren't accessible that way (the old vtech handset has never been the
same since a thunderstorm some time back, but the vtech base seems to
be fine).
It claims 120hrs battery reserve on standby between charges. I
haven't put that to the test, I normally drop the handset into the
charger when not using it or carrying it around.
Negative points which come to mind: limited size of address book (only
20 entries), and no facility to load addresses from a mobile phone sim
card. And the off-hook and hang-up buttons are not particularly
conspicuous or well-marked in my opinion, but you soon get used to
them. The vtech had a facility to assign base stations a nice name,
which showed on its handset in addition to the base reference (A B C
or D), but this Pana one only refers to bases by their number (1 2 3
or 4). You can have the Pana handset display the base number (as -1-
to -4-) /or/ the handset number (as [1] to [6]), but not both. No
backlight option on the display.
Overall I'm pleased with it, and seems good value.
hope this helps
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| Jet Morgan replied to Lobster on 26 Jun 2005 |
"Lobster" <davidlobsterpot601@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:TTyve.6781$11.1918@newsfe2-
Stupid question, but why not just unplug the phones at a common point
(or have a TPST switch) on lines 2,3,5) ?
Then you wouldn't be able to make outgoing calls either.
However presumably you know when you want to be able to make
outgoings, so you could just turn the switch back on when you wanted
to dial out.
If you have any line powered equipment, you might have to switch a
local -48V battery in to keep it alive. Don't use a mains-derived
PSU for this.
Richard [in PE12]
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| Jet Morgan replied to Lobster on 26 Jun 2005 |
"Lobster" <davidlobsterpot601@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:TTyve.6781$11.1918@newsfe2-
You could put a switch in the ringing wire (pin 3, I think). However,
some (most?) modern equipment can ring on just pins 2 and 5. Perhaps
you could design a piece of electronics to relay-out lines 2,3,5 (possibly
4)
whenever a signal was detected on the ring line.
Richard [in PE12]
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| simonclark123 replied to Lobster on 28 Jun 2005 |
Unfortunately this is not always the case - the Binatone I used to have
allowed the phone to be silenced, but not the base.
I now use an Inventeer, which also routes my calls automatically via
18866 and allows me to silence both the phone and the base.
Regards
Simon Clark
Business Telecoms
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| Alan J. Flavell replied to Lobster on 26 Jun 2005 |
Oh well, I suppose there have to be some. On the ones I've used, even
where there wasn't an explicit silent option, it was possible to set
the ringer volume options to 0 and get the same result.
My wire phone (Audioline TEL-45, if you care) also has a ringer volume
switch HI-LO-OFF. None of these were features that I specifically
looked for when buying the things, they just came as part of the deal,
and I'd supposed them to be normal, as I find similar features on the
phones that we use in the office.
As others have commented, many modern phones don't use wire 3, but
take their ringing directly off 2-5, making the modified wiring
approach into quite a drama. I haven't done any tests to see which
phone is which in that regard.
I'm glad now that I chose the Panasonic last time around. ;-)
A BT Diverse had been on the list of possibles.
cheers
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| Phil Thompson replied to Lobster on 26 Jun 2005 |
can you turn them off ? saves batteries too.
Phil
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| Chip replied to Lobster on 26 Jun 2005 |
A switch in series with the orange/white wire on pin 3 of the
secondary wiring will disconnect the bell when it's open, however,
many modern phones use their own ringing capacitor and won't stop
ringing. Disconnecting pin 3 will not affect the DC line feed on wires
2 and 5 (the blue/white pair), and therefore shouldn't affect your
dialer.
*disclaimer: any device connected to the telephone wiring is supposed
to be BABT approved, and disconnecting the ringing wire (pin 3) is not
an approved method of wiring. However, it's been done before :-)
Your cheapest way to test this is to wire up an extension socket with
just pins 2 and 5 connected and plug in the DECT phone, then either
use 17070 or a friend or a mobile phone to ring the line, and see if
the DECT phone rings. If not, the switch idea would work. A normal
light switch would be fine, it would match the colour/size of the
phone socket, it's adequately rated for the purpose, and it's cheap.
HTH
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| Alan J. Flavell replied to Lobster on 26 Jun 2005 |
Are you sure? I've had three different DECT phones over the years (a
Philips, a vtech, and now a Panasonic) and all of them had
configuration options for setting ringer options on the base and on
the handsets, including a silent option. These were in no way
high-end expensive models - just the regular offerings in the local
chains (Comet or similar).
The most recent one even has an option to define a silent period (e.g
when you'd normally be asleep), when the phone automatically goes into
no-ring mode during that period. If you have caller-id then you can
define a few caller(s) who you consider important enough to override
this block.
I don't think I'd be happy with intefering with the wiring to try to
solve your problem. I'd tackle the individual phones, I think, if it
was me.
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| Peter Morgan - 0870 432 9632 replied to Alan J. Flavell on 26 Jun 2005 |
Was this the Panasonic, and if so, which model, please ? Sounds ideal.
Have just checked and the BT DECTs I have just have three volume levels
of low, medium, high. I've not tried it, but I suppose a Call Sign
'Switch' might do the trick if the OP doesn't have Call Sign, so it
would be possible to leave the DECT plugged in to respond only to CS
calls and thus allow an outgoing path for them to make calls, just be
silent (hopefully) on incoming calls. Physical plugging though :-(
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| Peter Morgan - 0870 432 9632 replied to Peter Morgan - 0870 432 9632 on 26 Jun 2005 |
It does. Many thanks, Alan. Peter Morgan.
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| Tiscali Tim replied to Alan J. Flavell on 26 Jun 2005 |
I have a DECT phone by which you *definitely* can't switch off the ringer by
fair means - so I have had to resort to foul! [FWIW, it's a BT Diverse
2010 - made by Siemens]
Most of the time I don't need it to ring - 'cos there are other phones I can
hear, and it seems to have a higher than stated REN value, whereby some of
the other phones don't ring when the DECT is on. I have 2 extension sockets
side by side - one wired normally with 2, 3 and 5 connected - and the other
with just 2 and 5, where the DECT normally lives. If I'm taking it out into
the garden, and *want* it to ring, I simply move the plug to the fully wired
socket.
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| Ian replied to Lobster on 26 Jun 2005 |
easy (hopefully the ascii diagram is ok
DPDT (BT sw2A) switch
calls connecting
_
BT -----------master---dialer----o o o
\------------rest of
sockets
_
BT -----------master---dialer----o o o
\------------rest of
sockets
Line disconnected
_
BT -----------master---dialer----o o o
\------------rest of
sockets
_
BT -----------master---dialer----o o o
\------------rest of
sockets
Ian
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| Mike GW8IJT replied to Lobster on 27 Jun 2005 |
My Binatone MD750 Twin has a facility to turn the ringers off both in
the handsets individually and in the base, I would have thought that all
Dect phones had that facility.
Regards Mike.
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