test socket / no dialtone after i 'mended' it

Tonight, while trying to squeeze a little more than half a meg down, rather than my more usual 6 or so mb, (because Eclipse has yet another outage this week) - i remembered that last outage i removed the front of the master socket, to reveal the test socket and was still using that.

tonight I just wanted to remove the ringer wire originally , but it looks like i'd have to take the whole box off the wall and mess with BT's wiring into the main box from the drop. which i wont do.
so i contented myself as i removed all wires going to the half-size front plate instead, except the 2 blue & whites, pins (2+5). i think these just went under the floorboards to the front room extension socket, as the drop wires seen to come in at the extreme back of the BT socket, from outside i guess.

whilst i was there i tried wiring up my extension for the front room, which i unwired from the NTE on yet another previous outage, i got it all back together ok, front panel on,but on either socket now, there's no ringtone. cant make a call. phone was working earlier today. the router connects easily. speed is up a little too, earlier down Noise Margin was 9.8 db and now its 6.8 db, so thats better ?

A for the phone, i plugged in the filter with the fone, then with the router, and swapped to the test socket again, as then put it back ait was previously wired, and there's still no dial tone. even directly plugging the fone into the test socket still gave
no dialtone. i'm really scratching my head on this one.

- time to change ISPs anyway..
apologies for the long-winded explanation..

If using the test socket then there is no ring wire.

The incoming wiring from BT is just two wires, the master socket generates the ring wire.

I'm not sure what gone on with the wiring, (confused) but have you tried another phone

Hi Mr Saffron,
Thanks for the info mate, - thats interesting, I haven't tried another phone i'm afraid,
i dont have a spare, i dont actually use the BT phone (unless its an emergency) - as its in the back of the flat and i cant hear it anyway...

jut for info, All the internal wiring is dreadful at in this flat (Lazy landlord) and when i moved in, even the landlords 'spaghetti' phone extension, which i removed the day BT came and mended my faulty line, to the pole outside about ten years ago, when i moved in here, in a bid to improve my s/n ratio .. be moving again soon too..

Mark

Just spent a while with Eclipse tech support folks .. i really do like them... they did a line test, seems my BT line is giving errors like there's no tomorrow. its apparently on the CE (copper) bit they told me to tell BT, which i did ( via the BTWebsite )

Glad Eclipse foned my mobile and sorted out where the problem could be. i was connecting
via an old, outdated user name/pw too, and they're still sending my MAC they said, i will miss
Eclipse's tech support crew if i do migrate, but i'll be thinking about their offer of more
Gb p.m for a few more quid - if the line speeds up - my mate up the road gets 30ms pings
and 4mb down.. lucky chap. my ping last night was over a second .. four figures. d/l was 50kb/s,
now i know the BT line is goosed (i only saw them put it in a few years ago!)
- its a surprise i can get this site up. what a day.

time to collect some dust and make sure your "fix" is not visible. I would dust it inside and out

You need to be aware that if the fix or fault appears to be beyond the BT demarkation line, that they will charge for the visit £130 or more

its apparently on the CE (copper) bit they told me to tell BT, which i did ( via the BTWebsite )

CE (customer end) You've fiddled with the wiring and nonced it up. Get ready for the repair bill !

And if it is before but it is obvious the customer has been tampering then it could be the same or more!

Photos needed

Yes, i understand ... The fault developed *before* i even went into that (unused) room, so i doubt its the landlords 'pound shop' extension i took out, as it made no difference, it wasn't BT's wire, as i've not touched with the actual NTE wiring at all, as i was aware of this £130 charge, i just plugged into the test socket behind the master plate,

Maybe its related though, but difficult to see how, but if i have to pay the BT costs, so be it ..
it would just be the end to a perfect day anyway

pic 1

pic 2

i know my camera is horrible ..


Mark

2 pics further down VVV

Mark

Pics following Ian // -

Mark

It's pics of the backs of the faceplates that are needed. Pics of the rest of the socket insides while the faceplates are off could also help.

Ahh.. ok Roberto, shall post a pic or 2 tomorrow

Mark

On the backs of the faceplates we need to be able to see the colours of the wires that are attached. So careful with the flash .

Daylight generally works best for mobile phones too

CE = customer engineer fault. The OP doesn't need to panic these are classed as external, until proved otherwise of course

In reply to a post by polemonkey:

CE = customer engineer fault. The OP doesn't need to panic these are classed as external, until proved otherwise of course

I can understand it meaning that for cusomers so big and technically involved with their telecoms, or using a third party for internal wiring and so on, but surely that amounts to the same thing as Customer end? How can a Customer Engineer fault be external?

In any case, it looks more than 95% probable that the OP has messed it up. Even if his wiring is now OK I think it possible he has shorted something and upset the applecart.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

..... How can a Customer Engineer fault be external?

Easily is the answer to that one!

In reply to a post by Deadbeat:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

..... How can a Customer Engineer fault be external?

Easily is the answer to that one!

Whch is a perfectly deadbeat answer to a genuine question.

The words Customer Engineer seem to explicitly rule out anything external as a Customer would not be touching anything external. Nor do retail customers have engineers.

I think I'll stick with Zarjaz's answer until something helpful is posted to show him wrong.

In the specific case, ignoring that diagnosis, do you agree the problem is probably customer end?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

..... would not be touching...

Should not be touching...
I've lost count of the cut/moved/"jointed" dropwires and tampered with NTE's etc that I've seen.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

..... In the specific case, ignoring that diagnosis, do you agree the problem is probably customer end?

I'd put a few pennies on it!

Quite. We seem to agree on all points. If "CE = Customer Engineer" in the official Openreach manuals, then just another example of the illiteracy of the people who produced them. I could just about accept "Customer misEngineering" .

Yes, well maybe my original posting's title using the words 'messed up' were maybe slightly misleading, indeed, those words were chosen as to be slightly 'tongue in cheek' to add a little levity to the post, as is quite common whilst fault-finding...

To reiterate, the fault developed before i even checked the landlords wiring. The sudden lack of ADSL and phone service *then* prompted me to check the master socket,
and then subsequently, to remove the non standard addition .. I'm reasonably aware of BT's policy on customers *actually* messing with their side of things, thats why i removed it before they called - it wasn't working in any case, and was unneeded.

Being, as i was, involved in electronics professionally, i felt it was not beyond me to remove a simple 'pound shop extension' as of course it isn't, and wouldn't be for 90% of folks on this forum.

What puzzled me was, i saw the BT guys actually putting the line in, several years ago,
and so immediately discounted the possibility that it would have gone wrong again, so soon.
and wondered if BT were usng some fancy sensing technology i wasn't yet aware of.
old tales of REN, Buzby, frazzeled engineers, CB'ers using the lines as transmitting aerials sprang to mind..

Turns out the Engineer told me, it looks like some contractors may have been working near the pole and pulled some connections out. And there are scaffolders working around there, maybe one had accidentally hit a wire or something..
maybe i need to stop eating those blue smarties .. i think there's something in them ..|

i was always told that CE = Customer Equipment.

I have just had a look at clear code doc that i have.

And yes i do need to get out more ! LOL