sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Automated Time Announcement

1. NO.
2. It cannot.
3. Something other than the Phone Company.

Since this happens every hour on the hour it should be trivial for someone to actually go to the customer premise and track down exactly where this is coming from.

Did she recently purchase a time announcing clock radio and place it in the vicinity of the telephone?

I'm with MA. I spent thirty minutes locating an irritating beep at the front counter of a motel that they swore was coming from the call accounting system. You guessed it, alarm clock under a stack of stuff in a cabinet. It was plugged in and going beep beep beep, as in GET UP.
Finally figured out that night shift had it set up and that person had the previous night off! It was set for 5 AM. Look for something on-site!
John C.

I want to thank all of you guys for the input and thoughtful discussion. My apologies for not being on line after asking the question - I travel quite a bit and this past week was a bust for connections.

Everyone seems to be leaning to an RF signal, and this makes perfect sense. Interesting this can activate an on-hook handset.

Collectively all of you have made quite a few suggestions that need to be followed through now. I intend to run down through the posts and make a priority list for a stepwise investigation. I will post findings here as we come across them.

To answer a few of the questions:

1. She claims there are no devices she owns or recently bought that could be making this time announcement, and if so it is not likely they would break into an active conversation.
2. ED - I'll check on the timeframe for the manufacture of the phone and whether it came installed with the house when purchased. This is possible, and could easily by vintage 1970's. BTW - $2471.93 is a deal!
3. I agree that the meter reporting would be digital and unlikely the meter would announce the time in a female voice to the company connecting computer or whatever they use to datalog. So back to RF.
4. No answering machine - I wish she did have one!
5. The other side the wall is the entry foyer (single family residence) - if memory serves me well there is a picture on the wall, but I will check this out as one of my leads.
6. SST - not sure I get your point about "open-off the line" to monitor at different points. What sort of monitoring would you do & what equipment would you use? It is interesting that she reports that only the kitchen wall phone does this. None of the other phones in the house. If this is RF transmission wouldn't all the phones in the house pick it up? Or as Ed pointed out, maybe this phone is older tech than the others in the house and that's why only this phone is making the announcements.
7. Skip - Disconnecting the NID is a great idea. It would seem to confirm RF if it still does it.
8. Anthony - A test at the demarc on the hour is also a great suggestion. No incoming signal would be telling....

Thanks again to everyone - really appreciate your time. I will be back with some results within a couple days.

Bob

Bob

Keep us advised , you say "Tampa area" , can you be a bit more specific as to city , several of us are in the area

I'm south of Tampa and if it where nearby I wouldn't mind stopping by and hearing it in person

Unplug the entire telephone prior to the hour. Everything, line cord, power supply and if it has batteries take them out. Put whole shootin match in the trunk of car. Then wait!! Post Results

Thank You

The other side the wall is the entry foyer (single family residence) - if memory serves me well there is a picture on the wall, but I will check this out as one of my leads.

No, don't bother with the picture. I was thinking that this was a duplex or other multi-famly and the phone was on a wall the separates the two units. Possibly someone in the other unit had something that would be causing this.

-Hal

I have seen old handsets with a diode across the reciever. That is the basics for a crystal AM radio. I have picked up AM radio stations with just the handset and coil cord standing near the windows of an office next to a radio tower. But how this gets amplified so you can hear it across the room is beyond me. I can't see how it could be picked up on a converstion when that phone is on hook. I think Grider has the best idea.

How about an amplified handset? This could both detect AM radio and amplify it. Or other RF and amplify it! Just an idea. John C.

I don't know guys, this is starting to look like something on the line. The service provider is Verizon. They can't figure it out. They contacted AT&T and others - everyone thinks its a joke until they hear it. Finally today I heard it while speaking with her on the phone. It was a garbled tone followed by a very quick "It is now 5 PM". I almost missed it. Once I played it back in my head I realized that this is what I heard. Since I'm several time zones away I had to look at a clock to make the correlation. Neighbors don't have the problem and two other hard wired sets in the house don't either. There is only one line. The wall phone came with the house 13 years ago. I can't get anyone on that end to play switch phones - so I don't have any results there. Verizon believes its on the line, even though they changed the wires. Could be a crossed solder connection somewhere, but they don't seem interested in looking for it. I am trying to get the local tech's name and number.

If anyone is in the Seminole area I can forward your number to her. Otherwise she's probably going to have to hope the telco figures it out or it just stops.

Bob

wrong direction for me , I rarely get up that way (I'm 45 min or so south, though I did grow up in that area )I was hoping for something that I could grab on the way to a customer .

If you want to PM me the number I would be glad to pop in If I did happen to get up that way (N/C Just to see whats happening)

We may be going up that way to concert near the end of the month , (haven't decide yet )
how can it be a outside problem if the other sets don't have it ?

why not just replace that phone ?