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Trouble-shooting "message waiting" light

I am not sure this is the right forum to be posting to; if not, is there a better one? Anyway, I am at my wits end with a simple little problem which I hope someone can help me understand.

I have a 2 line telephone connected with a single (4 stranded) cable to the panel in the basement. I have "call answering" from Verizon - basically home voice mail. When there's a message waiting, the dial tone stutters, which is how you know to call and check your messages. The phone has a little light that blinks, even without picking up, to tell you there's a message waiting too. Somehow it must be detecting the stuttering itself and lighting up. So far so good.

The problem? When there's a message waiting on line 2 the telephone detects it and lights up the message waiting light. However, when there's a message waiting on line 1, it doesn't detect it, which means that I have to constantly pick up the phone to listen for the stuttering dial tone. By the way this happened from the very first day I hooked up the phone.

Here is everything I've done to trouble shoot this:

- I exchanged the phone for a new one. Didn' help. Has the same problem

- doesn't detect a message waiting on line 1.

- I plugged the phone into the corresponding RJ11 on the panel in the basement, and it works correctly, it detects a message waiting on either line.

- I reviewed the wiring hook ups (color of each strand) really carefully and I really believe it is correct, although I don't know a definitive way to prove it.

- I even switched around some of the colored strands in case that might make a difference - it doesn't.

Not knowing exactly how the detection works I can't diagnose this further. Can anyone help?

Thanks!

Reply to
pitosalas
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With MTS (telco here in Manitoba) you have to dial a special number to activate the message waiting indicator for each line. Perhaps you haven't done this on both your lines.

Reply to
Paul

It would be helpful to know the brand & model of phone you're using.

From: snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com

Reply to
BruceR

It uses FSK to detect the message waiting when on hook.

Usually each line will have it's own jack. Were they both connected at the same time?

Of the 4 wires, 2-3 make the line 1 pair, 1-4 make the line 2 pair. Try reversing 2 and 3 on one end to see if that fixes it. If not, try plugging the wire into the "Line 2 Only" jack, if the problem is in the wiring, the message waiting should fail on that line to.

You can only switch 1 and 4 or 2 and 3.

Sounds like a bad wire, causing attenuation, between the NIC and the outlet. If there are any unused pairs left in the bundle, you could try another pair. You could also unplug everything on line 1 in the house, to make sure something else isn't causing an on-hook short or low resistance. (When you did the test at the panel, you probably removed everything from the line.)

Here is some more help:

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Brad H

Reply to
Brad Houser

I was out of town for two days. Thanks everyone for the responses. Here are my answers to each of your questions:

BruceR: The phone is a Uniden Power Max 5.8 MHz - 2line

BradHouser: I am using a single 8 lead wire for both connection, only four leads in use. So I am using a single jack on the phone that handles boith lines. (You asked that question, but the rest of your post implies that you already understand that.)

When you refer to line 1,2,3,4 in your diagnostic steps, what color combinations are you talking about?

Here's what I've got:

Patch panel: Blue, Blue/White, Orange, Orange/White

Cable: Blue, Blue/White, Orange, Orange/White and unused: Green, Green/White, Brown, Brown/White

Colors inside Jack near phone -> connected to cable color:

Yellow -> Orange Black -> Orange/White Green -> Blue Red -> Blue/White

Thanks for your help. Clearly you guys understand this better than I do, so I hope that you can point me in the right direction because this is driving me nuts :) Feel free to email me directly too but I will monitor this thread!

- Pito

Reply to
Pito

I've seen a similar problem when a device not designed for two line service (in my case an answering machine) was plugged into a two-line jack. Did you check the behavior of the phones when nothing else was plugged into the phone company's network interface. Ideally you have you internal phone wiring connected so that you can disconnect all internal wiring and check the service coming into the building.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

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