sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information DTMF Volume

Hey all -

Are there any adjustments which can be made to the touchpad to increase the volume of the DTMF signal?

I have a piece of equipment which uses these tones to control it. Of the 11 telephones in my house, 2 of them, one being a payphone, and one keyset connected to my 1A2 system, control it just fine. They also have, and have always had, quite loud volume when pressing the touchpad.

For the rest of the phones, either 1A2 or SLT, I have to hold down the touchpad key for a couple seconds before it is recognized.

I'm guessing the answer is no, but having the 2 phones which are much louder tha all the others made me think ... maybe ....

Thanks
Matt

Not that I've ever seen. Way back when, TT levels were 10 down from voice, I doubt that still applies. If you can read levels you could put a DB meter on it and see what the difference is. Only way to adjust would be through the transmit levels of a system, which of course would raise all transmit levels.

I would think something like your talking about would be more frequency related than level.

Matt -

Is there some commonality among the sets that work and the ones that don't (Manufacturer comes to mind first)?

Sam

Thanks Bill, frequency didn't even occur to me.

Sam -

The 2 that work are the WE payphone and an Allen Tel Panel Phone. The Allen tel specifically has always been very loud, you can't even hold it to your ear while dialing. The payphone seems a bit loud as well, but not uncomfortably so.

Among the ones that don't work are a WE trimline (old round button style), a WE touch-a-matic, 3 WE 2565 HKM / HKL's, a WE 2554 BMP, and finally a WE 2851), so no real commonality among the ones that don't work, except they are all WE.

******* EDIT ********: One other bit of info - _some_ of the keys do work. For example, to get the things attention, I press ***. From there I select from various numbered options. 1, 2 and 3 seem to be the biggest problems, they rarely work, while the rest of the keys seem to work OK. '***' ALWAYS works. Also the thing I'm controlling ( The thing ) is brand new as of Thursday.

On that note, the old 'thing' presented a loud buzz on the line when I pressed ***, which is why I replaced it last week. Having said that, it did respond to keypresses OK, it was just irritating to use.

Looks like I've given enough info to narrow this down to 'just about anything' could be causing the problem, so I'll stop for now. But looking at it objectively, I'm inclined to blame 'the thing'.... perhaps it's just too sensitive. It's just that it works 100% of the time from the 2 other phones that's got me vexed.

Thanks -
Matt

Another edit, I tried my 1A2 comdial (don't have the model, but it's one of the one's that's sold on Ebay for $15 or so), works fine. Tried my Phyllis Diller phone, which I wanna say is a comdial, but I don't rememeber. Anyway it works fine too.

So now, with the exception of the payphone, the only comonality is: The WE phones don't work with the new 'thing'.

It may be something as simple as cleaning the dial contacts on the old 1A2 stuff. If you dial into a quiet term or via intercom do the number sound clear and strong.

As far as the volume you hear when dialing that's probably has more to do with how they are wired more than what the actual level is hitting the line.

Another thing you could do, if you have a digit grabber see what it's telling you when connected to the line.

Bill -

Yeah, the numbers seem to be pretty clear/strong to me, but I'll take you up on the cleaning anyway. Would a shot of contact cleaner suffice, or is it a qtip/rubbing alchohol kind of thing (I'd think the latter would risk bending the contacts)... anyway any tips appreciated.

No digit grabber here

Thanks
Matt

If you don't have a burnishing tool take a piece of clean thin cardboard, like a matchbook. You can put a little alcohol on the cardboard, but doubt you'd need it. Don't use anything that will leave a residue, like cloth. Pure clean cotton will work also, but the matchbook will work better.

.......or a fresh $100 bill.......we telephone men never had any thing bigger than a $20. The paper money is printed on will do a great job of burnishing.

My $100 worth.

Thanks Ken, I'll try that on the next one.

I used a business card on the first keyset, at first it didn't seem to make any difference but after I excercised it a few times it got progressively better. 1 down...... 4 to go. Actually I have a whole shelf of them still to do, but I'll attack the ones I actually use first.

Thanks for the tip Bill, et. al!


PS:

Ken - If I had any $100 bills, I'd give them to you to come do this for me