With a Little Help From My Friend

[Jim Koepke]

Our telephones have been giving us a little problem for a while. Our old phones would occasionally not ring when someone called. The batteries finally died for the second time so we recently bought some new phones at Costco. Things seemed fine for a while. Then recently we would mis calls even when we were home. Then I noticed the screen would light when someone called but no ring. The instructions were reread and followed, still no luck. Since these are cordless phones and we have often thought about getting a hardwire phone for when the power goes out we ordered a phone from Amazon.

Dang those folks are fast. The phone was ordered Friday evening and arrived today. I didn't pay for special shipping. So plugged it in and called a friend to have him call me back. No ring but the screen lit up on the cordless display to show line activity. With his help calling back it was determined that the line to the house was fine. Since we have DSL for our internet he suggested changing the DSL filter. BINGO! The DSL filter was tripping the ring current.

The only sad part about this is we now will be bothered by telemarketers again.

jtk

[Mike Cooper]

The only sad part about this is we now will be bothered by telemarketers again.

jtk

Sign up with NOMOROBO (www.nomorobo.com). Cut our spam calls by 80+%.

Mike

[Jim Becker]

I agree with using nomorobo...it works great...but it's only usable on certain types of phone service because of the features it requires to function.

[Curt Harms]

I agree with using nomorobo...it works great...but it's only usable on certain types of phone service because of the features it requires to function.

+1 on Nomorobo. During the "political seasons", we get 10+ "one ring" calls per day It's an absolute godsend. It requires user participation so I have their "report this number" function bookmarked.

[Jim Koepke]

The last time this came up Nomorobo doesn't work on a regular old fashioned land line.

The latest robo calls seem to have some software working with them to answer when it is asked if it is a real human. Have received those with two different voices so far. Hopefully not again, as the phones have one ring blocking of numbers so we will see if it works. There is a first ring silent feature. That would even silence the first ring on non-blocked calls.

We do have one back up phone that is hard wired so if the power goes out we still have phone service.

jtk

[John K Jordan]

I simply quit answering unless the call comes from someone in my address book. Since I started this I have answered no calls offering to lower my credit card interest. That's ok, I have no credit card debt. And there is no law in this state requiring I answer the phone.

If it's a legitimate call, they can leave a message. No message, must not have been important.

Sometimes I think we are way too connected. You should see teens panic when they come to work on the farm and I tell them I lock their phones in the shop while they are on the clock. I'm not paying you to check your snapchat, facebook, and text messages every 2 minutes. "But what if my mother calls and it's an emergency???" "She has my phone number." An interesting observation: they adjust very quickly.

I know a guy who only turns his cell phone on when he wants to make a call. I might try that. We have a dinner bell at the house I can hear from all over the farm.

JKJ

[John K Jordan]

The paper this morning said the FCC is fining a robocall company in Florida $120M for nearly 100 million calls in just three months in 2016. This company uses "neighborhood spoofing" on the phone numbers to give the calls your area code and the same first three digits of your area to try to get you to answer.

Go FCC!

I hope technology will be devised to stop ALL spoofing spammers, phone and email, and trigger the caller ID and email address to show "Warning: fake #/address"

JKJ

[Mike Baker 2]

I simply quit answering unless the call comes from someone in my address book. Since I started this I have answered no calls offering to lower my credit card interest. That's ok, I have no credit card debt. And there is no law in this state requiring I answer the phone.

If it's a legitimate call, they can leave a message. No message, must not have been important.

Sometimes I think we are way too connected. You should see teens panic when they come to work on the farm and I tell them I lock their phones in the shop while they are on the clock. I'm not paying you to check your snapchat, facebook, and text messages every 2 minutes. "But what if my mother calls and it's an emergency???" "She has my phone number." An interesting observation: they adjust very quickly.

I know a guy who only turns his cell phone on when he wants to make a call. I might try that. We have a dinner bell at the house I can hear from all over the farm.

JKJ

This right here; all of it. Whoever is calling is listed on our TV screen(we have Comcast phone/tv/internet, and it's part of the service). If we don't know the number, we don't pick up.
And I, like your friend, only turn my cell phone on when I go to use it.
I told a friend that who wanted my cellphone number and he looked at me like I had three heads. "Why would you do that?", he said in a very freaked out tone of voice.
I do not need a cell phone glued to my rear end 24/7. If people want to get hold of me they can dial my land line and leave a message. If they are important to me, I'll get right back to them.

[Jim Koepke]

An update to this thread. Our phones stopped ringing again. Messed around a bit and it started to ring again. Then they stopped ringing.

One of the people in my Cardio Rehab group mentioned they had a similar problem. Since they have cell phones they do not use their landline. They only have a landline so they can get DSL internet service.

Yesterday Century link was called and told of the problem. One of my comments was, "I hear this is common with DSL service." There wasn't any reply to refute or acknowledge my comment. An appointment was scheduled.

We went out for the day and when we got home there was a message on our phone. Well at least something worked as the phone went to message. The message was from a technician from Century link and he said the problem was in their equipment. Hmmm, well at least the phone has been ringing this morning.

jtk

[John Stankus]

On some old phones reversing the pair would disable the touch-tone keypad I wonder if there is a similar pathology on some of the cheaper wireline phones (since that market is shrinking)

[Jim Koepke]

On some old phones reversing the pair would disable the touch-tone keypad I wonder if there is a similar pathology on some of the cheaper wireline phones (since that market is shrinking)

It was a polarity issue. Not sure if it still is since almost all the phones use jacks to connect to a wall box.

I haven't seriously messed with phones for years. Still remember the color codes and "red, ring, right" from my days as an installer for Pac Bell. The designation for "tip & ring" comes from the jacks and plugs they used in the old telephone offices with human operators to route calls.

jtk