Ampliphone Powertel handset.

[virginia1]

Good afternoon all,

I have an old handset as above.  Works very well except that since going digital it is not possible to leave a message on the answerphone and record system.  Tried all the usual things, delete call lists, switch off power etc and because the  company no longer exists to assist old customers, does anyone have any ideas to make it work?  Thank you.

[iniltous]

What happens if you call your landline number and let it ‘ring’ , does your answer machine simply not respond to ‘ringing’ and that unanswered call never gets answered, the caller simply gives up listening to ringing tone ,  or is the built in BT ‘network’ answer service,  answering the call instead of your machine  , in other words if your answer machine would normally wait to answer only after 10 ‘rings’ but the BT Answer 1571 intervenes after 7 ‘rings’ then clearly your answer machine would never get the chance to answer a call because BT 1571 gets in first .

You can increase the number of rings before BT Answer 1571 answers the call to allow your machine to pick up the call (obviously depending on how many rings your machine  waits ,without the manual you may not be able to change this number on your own machine to be less than BT 1571  ) , or switch BT1571 off completely if you want your own answering machine to answer calls when you don’t answer yourself , or just use the BT answering service instead of your old machine.

FWIW , if your answering machine and phone actually ‘ring’ when an incoming call is received then moving to DV is irrelevant, if your machine doesn’t even ring that’s a different issue.

[virginia1]

Hi

Thanks very much much for your response.  I've set the phone so it rings 9 times and it does actually ring 9 times before the caller is then invited to leave a message.  However this is immediately followed by a response saying 'voicemail is full and is unable to receive any more messages' even though I don't have any previous messages according to the phone and that's because they have all been deleted.  I wasn't aware I could switch  BT1571 off in order to solely use the Powertel phone answering service, which I would prefer but if that isn't possible and my phone still refuses to allow me the answer and record feature, could you tell me how I just use the answer phone from BT?  Do I just dial the number every time?  Sorry to be so useless.  Many thanks.

[iniltous · Accepted solution]

If your own machine answers but then says the to the caller that voicemail is full , but you can’t clear the messages or your machine doesn’t respond if you do this , indicates the machine is faulty or if coincidentally BT 1571 is set to the same number of rings , perhaps it may be the BT service giving the voicemail full message, you need to establish which it  is giving that announcement 

To use the BT answer service , simply switch off your own answer service part of the phone  , when callers invited to leave a message by BT because you haven’t answered , and they then do actually leave a message, you know this the next time you pick up the phone , as the dialtone changes from a steady tone to a modulated dual tone , you simply call 1571 to access the messages and decide to delete, or save them for a while …once the waiting messages have been listened to , dialtone goes back to the standard , some phones can also indicate a message has been left by illuminating a light on the phone , so you know without having to pick up the handset that a message has been received, that’s if they have the appropriate facility.

[virginia1]

Thank you that is all very clear and I will do as you suggest.   The machine is old so that doesn't surprise me that it may have developed a fault.  

Really appreciate the time you have taken to help me.  I now have another option I didn't know about.  All the very best to you and kind regards.