Phone Makes Odd Beeps

[Mayennaise]

Hi

We have an intermittent problem with our phone. Every now and again the handsets make the sound as if they are being replaced on the base unit - but they are already sitting on the base unit!. This can happen at any time of the day or night and is rather alarming when it happens in the middle of the night. It is only a soft two-tone beep but enought to wake me up!! I thought it might be an automatic pulse that VM were sending down the line for whatever reason but the nice lady in India (who, by the way, I had to keep asking to repeat what she was saying as I couldn't understand her!) made me feel about two inches tall when I suggested this!!!!

[scooby-doo]

try pulling the base unit out of the master socket and plugging it back in without lifting the handset if it makes the noise when doing this, then it sounds like a line issue, do you ever loose the dial tone when in use !

[Mayennaise]

Unplugged and plugged in again - no noise when plugging in again - so is it our phone??

[scooby-doo]

cant be sure m8, that test would simulate the line loosing the voltage and when it comes back some phones do that beep noise as an indicator that it back onhook.

another thought...do you have a house alarm thats wired through phone line for monitoring purposes.
these can cause allsorts of problems... including dialing out at odd times to report their health status.

[Mayennaise]

Nope - no alarm through the phone. I like the idea of the loss of voltage though - anything I can do about it?

[scooby-doo]

you should eliminate the phones first though, I suggest trying them in another household for a few days to see if it still happens there. if it does then I would say its the phones. if it doesn’t do it then u need to eliminate the internal wiring.
could be an intermittent short, the biggest culprit being extension sockets...and wiring that is hidden under carpets or even worse laminate/wooden flooring, the cable gets crushed and can short out anytime. symptoms of a short would be the phone ringing itself and no-one there when u pick it up. or constant engaged tone if u phone your landline from another number even if your not using the landline.

if you take the faceplate off the master socket this should disconnect any extensions if its wired correctly. then re-test for the fault. if your absolutely sure it not the internal wiring or phones try the engineer route.

tell them its intermittent and you have done some tests on the internal wiring. the engineer should test all the way from the cabinet as he has specialist equipment to test for stray voltages,earthing faults etc..

mention to the engineer about the E-side possibly dropping voltage. don't tell him his job though cause they are touchy sometimes

i off on holiday for a few days m8, hope you can narrow it down with this info.

[Mr_Moo]

I would suggest unplugging the cordless phone(s) from the main socket and plugging in a corded phone and see if you still experience the same issue.

Virgin Media don't support cordless phone, so this is the first step in pretty much any fault relevant to this.

Let us know how you get on.

[Graham M]

Erm nothing to do with the phone line by the sounds of it, more likely either the batteries on their last legs or you are getting voltage drops big enough to fool the phones they have been taken off of the cradles, either that or the handsets could just be wearing out

[handyman]

Originally Posted by Graham M

Erm nothing to do with the phone line by the sounds of it, more likely either the batteries on their last legs or you are getting voltage drops big enough to fool the phones they have been taken off of the cradles, either that or the handsets could just be wearing out

The phone may also not be making good contact with the charger points. Mine beeps when I plug it in so yours might be getting a vibration from a car passing or somehting breaking the connection.