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- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!news.acns.nwu.edu!telecom-request
- Date: Sun, 13 Dec 92 15:46:26 -0600
- From: martin@datacomm.ucc.okstate.edu
- Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
- Subject: Re: Offhook Chirp
- Message-ID: <telecom12.903.13@eecs.nwu.edu>
- Organization: TELECOM Digest
- Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
- Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
- X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
- X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
- X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 903, Message 13 of 15
- Lines: 43
-
- In article <telecom12.897.7@eecs.nwu.edu> Lance_Neustaeter@tvbbs.
- wimsey.bc.ca (Lance Neustaeter) writes:
-
- > I've recently purchased a very cheap phone (the kind that sound
- > like a cricket when they ring). There's only one thing which annoys
- > me about it: Whenever an extension goes off hook, this phone gives off
- > a little chirp.
-
- > there are three wires connected to the piezo (?) speaker. How can I
- > stop the annoying off hook chirp?
-
- A little review of how phones ring is in order. A working analog telephone
- line has a steady DC voltage around 48 volts. The sounder in a telephone
- doesn't receive any voltage because there is a capacitor in series with it.
- Capacitors block DC and appear to conduct AC. When you'are in the shower
- and the local telemarketing machine calls you, an AC signal is superimposed
- or mixed with the DC voltage. The 20-HZ AC signal passes through the
- blocking capacitor and rings the bell or shocks the cricket, as the case may
- be.
-
- The plot thickens. Capacitors hold a charge like a small battery.
- When connected in series with a sounder and a DC source, the sounder
- will get a little blast of current as the capacitor charges. When the
- line is quiet, the capacitor is fully charged and no current flows.
- If the phone rings, the 20-HZ signal alternately charges and
- discharges the capacitor, causing current to flow through the sounder.
- When the line is quiet and somebody picks up an extention, the 48-volt
- DC signal abruptly drops to about 10 volts. The capacitor has more
- voltage than the line, so it discharges through the sounder, causing
- another little flow of current until it equalizes again.
-
- Well-designed telephone sounders have enough mechanical or electrical
- inertia to ignore these little hits. The chirp happens because the
- sounder in question "thinks" it is seeing the start of a ring. There
- really isn't a heck of a lot that can be done about this except to
- disconnect the sounder or put the little telephone somewhere where the
- chirps are not a problem.
-
-
- Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK
- O.S.U. Computer Center Data Communications Group
-
-