sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information 4 line analog sytem and intercom trouble

Hello all. I have a customer that over the years has had an analog 4 line "system" (ATT 4 line phone). Its been working fine until the past couple of days. I have dial tone on all 4 lines but they are having problems Intercom paging each other. Some stations can accept intecom calls some can not. After my second visit, I told the customer that since adding to the system( 2 additional Phones), they have exceeded the length limitations. Now they want to remove some to get the intercom features back. Well I went back out and eliminated 2 phones and its still not intercoming correctly. At this point Im trying to talk them into a real system but they just want to get it back the way it was before it got screwed. (BTW another tech went out and screwed everything up moving 1 phone) I have cleaned up the mess and removed all loops from jack to jack on the block and dedicated 1 cross connect per connection, But still it does not intercom. Any Ideas? Thanks in Advance.

abandon ship.

For what they will spend in labor to try to figure out why it stopped working they could buy a real system. The only time I touch that stuff is when I relocate it to a dumpster.

Do the phones have batteries that need replacing .

If you look up the model # on the internet you can probably find out how to reprogram the
Icm numbers .

I had the same thing at a residence wires every where. Spagetti in the garage,half speaker wire/half cat3 / up to the attic back down
First time batteries and programming /

Next time found 1 wire to send cos to panasonic
master /the balance cordless sets. A sparky /alarm guy // and friend did initial wiring.

Since the intercom works off a digital signal on the first line, one phone could be causing you problems. Or you may have a dirty pair. All you can do is eliminate sets and isolate the problem. This could turn into a time consuming problem, so like Mark said it may be time for a real system.

Echo justbill

Those system emulating phones are just trouble!

Thanks for the replys guys. The phones do have batteries in them, but ATT says its just in case the power goes out. (they all have power cords too). I have defaulted the programming on some and started from scratch and re named them different station #'s and they still dont act right. I hate to leave a customer hanging like this especially since they said it was working before our tech went out there, but I am scratching my head on this one And I got other jobs to complete. I cant hang out there all day like I did today and still not solve the problem.

VA, for those sets, home run cabling is not
recommended. 600 FT total.
The intercom does ride on line 1, which must be the same on all sets.
If you have DSL, do not use that line as line 1.
Are you sure the transformers are all plugged in and working?
at each set, press program, use the down arrow until the screen displays " Extension No., press the right arrow then use the up/down arrows to get the desired Ext. No. from 11-22 then press save.
Also make sure your not intercomming a station with the DND set.
MrG

Same here.............install them a system that is made for the business world.

One thing to be sure of is polarity for each line on these monsters.

I know in today's age that's not supposed to matter much but sometimes those old analog "non-systems" can get pretty strange in their behavior.

VTech, the manufacturer of AT&T branded consumer telephone products since 2000, has a history of poor quality control.

A NOKSU set-up is passable for a very small budget conscience operation, but once you start to approach, say 50% of the limits of the NOKSU system, it is time to upgrade to a regular commercial-grade telephone system.

I agree with Mr. Gemini and Just Bill's thoughts.

If all of the sets are programmed & wired properly, one of the sets may be messing up the entire system.