This topic

Rotary phone

BADmoon1969 — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 14:51:59 GMT

Just had fibre installed and my old fashioned rotary phone dies not ring as it did with landline connection.

Re: Rotary phone

yorkspark — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 14:57:25 GMT

@BADmoon1969wrote:
Just had fibre installed and my old fashioned rotary phone dies not ring as it did with landline connection.

Are you now on digital voice?

Re: Rotary phone

BADmoon1969 — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 15:01:34 GMT

Yes, had it installed last week as part of a new contract (no choice). I have vintage phone which would always ring (very loud bell) when I had an incoming call. The ring has now stopped working since fibre digital voice fitted.

Re: Rotary phone

yorkspark — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 15:03:18 GMT

fit one of these to the phone, it will recreate the ring wire needed

Re: Rotary phone

WSH — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 15:06:38 GMT

The microfilter plugs into the Smart Hub 2 and provides the “third wire” required to ring very old phones. You then plug the phone into the microfilter, of course.

Re: Rotary phone

BADmoon1969 — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 15:25:11 GMT

Hi, I’ve got one of these, but it does not seem to work! Where exactly do I plug it? The engineer said that the voltage signal had now changed with digital voice and there now wasn’t enough power to make the vintage bell ring!

Re: Rotary phone

WSH — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 15:42:39 GMT

I've not actually done this myself but there have been a number of posts to suggest that is a solution. It may be the case the not all microfilters provide the third wire and only some makes will work.

As I said, the filter plugs into the phone socket on the back of the Smart Hub and the phone plugs into the microfilter.

Edit: OK, I've just tried two different models I've got to hand with a multimeter. One does seem to have a connection to the third wire, the other doesn't. The one that does seem to work is a cheap Chinese thing labeled DSL472. (That looks suspiciously like the one in the picture but the label is different).

Re: Rotary phone

WSH — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 16:39:18 GMT

OK, I’m officially confused now.

I’ve just looked up the schematic for a microfilter and it shows the ring wire connected via a capacitor, so testing it with a multimeter shouldn’t have worked.

I’m sure one of the guys from the telecom side of things could answer this better. @iniltous @36ULW any ideas?

Re: Rotary phone

licquorice — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 17:06:53 GMT

Ringing current is AC so will pass through the capacitor.

Not sure the hub can supply sufficient current for a high impedance mechanical bell.

Re: Rotary phone

wkirkman — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 17:12:38 GMT

I have an old GPO 746 rotary phone plugged in with Digital Voice and all works fine. I had to get a Pulse-to-Tone converter to dial 'out' but the ringing works without any change. If it worked before Digital Voice, it will work afterwards (fibre make no difference, no matter copper or fibre, the phone signals come into the house as IP packets just the same as any web page request).

So the question really is… where are you sticking it? It needs to go into the back of the Smart Hub 2 in the green port, and if not, then you either need your old extensions wiring into said green port, or use a Digital Adapter - all very well documented on this forum.

If you are sticking it into an extension socket as you used to, but the extensions are not wired the the back of the Smart Hub 2 green port then it will not work.

Re: Rotary phone

WSH — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 17:14:03 GMT

@licquorice Yes, still shouldn't have worked with a dc multimeter though. Unless I've shorted two pins when I was testing it.

Re: Rotary phone

licquorice — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 17:18:40 GMT

Indeed

Re: Rotary phone

BADmoon1969 — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 07:54:17 GMT

Hi wkirkman, many thanks for your response to my issue. I was informed by the but engineer that my vintage phone would no longer work because of the change in the AC current supply to the phone. I am not that bothered about using the phone to make calls, I haven’t done for years, but it is the loud ring of the phone which I have lost since the digital voice was installed a couple of weeks ago! I have an extension wire going from the main box which goes into another room where the vintage phone is located. There is an extension box in the other room where the wire/cable from the vintage phone in plugged into. Hope this makes sense to you. I have tried to send some photos but they are too large to send. Thanks again and I look forward to your reply.

Re: Rotary phone

imjolly — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 08:00:30 GMT

@BADmoon1969

as you are now on DV your existing phone sockets - master and extension - will no longer work without making a wiring adjustment detailed on the forum already

https://community.bt.com/t5/Archive-Staging/Correct-way-to-enable-all-BT-sockets-after-Digital-Voice/m-p/2164646/highlight/true#M76966

Re: Rotary phone

JB2016 — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 18:50:53 GMT

@BADmoon1969

Information about using old phones with the BT Smart Hub: https://bt-digital-voice.blogspot.com/p/bt-smart-hub-2.html