atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Samsung Telephones & Systems OS 7100 CO line troubles HELP!!!!!!!!

Has anyone one out there ever had an out of box failure on the 4TRM where all the CO lines ring in with Phantom calls?

I did a new install on Weds and everything went smooth until all 4 co lines started ringing in randomly with phantom calls, it goes in cycles in that it will work fine for awhile and then boom, it will go nuts ringing in.

AT&T is the provider and they had trouble on their lines which they thought they cleared Thursday evening, I stopped at the customer site this morning to check in and as soon as I walked in the lines flipped out again, so I was back on the phone with AT&T, the tech came out and couldn’t find any trouble and then he came out again with a crew because I called and told him that now line 3 was dead, the last thing they did at 4pm was to work on an aerial splice that had a frigging beehive in it, they got all 4 lines working again but at 4:30 I get a call from the customer screaming that the lines are flipping out again and if it's not fixed by 10am Monday morning that I need to pull the switch out and he'll find somebody else etc. also the you say it's them and they say it's you thing (not a happy call) while they were working on their end during the day I was trying to trouble shoot on the switch side.

NOTE: During all this time you could dial out and receive legitimate calls no problem except when all the co lines decided to ring in. I pulled line 3 from the 7100 this afternoon until they repaired it because it was dead on the LEC side but still had battery on it and that seem to quiet the problem down, but who knows anymore.

The 7100 is on a new UPS and I have it grounded to an I beam which is cemented into the floor of the warehouse, I swapped the UNI cards but I didn't have another 4TRM in stock and it was too late to get one shipped here by Monday, so I’m going back first thing Monday with a DCS Compact and if need be hook it up temporarily and see what happens.

I apologize for the long post but I am seriously at a WTF moment.

Mark

One simple thing to check, did you put the retaining screw in the 4TRM daughter board, it needs to be tight for earthing.

Since you don't have a spare 4TRM, try it in another position, and/or you have a spare UNI board, so if you have a spare slot you could put the 4TRM into that.

Are you using all 4 ports on the TRM? if not you could move the trunks.

One other thought is, if the 4TRM is at fault then to try and prove this you could just loop back some SLT's into the trunk ports.

Yep, the retaining screw is in and I swapped the uni board in slot 1 that had the 2 DLMs and the SLM modules and moved it to slot 2 with the 4trm installed with no change, and all 4 ports are being used.

feeding the single lines into the co ports is a good idea, when I bring the compact to the site on Monday I'll take the 7100 out of service with just 1 28 button falcon set connected and feed the 4 single lines in and see what happens.

The thing that gets me is that I had it on the bench for a day before the install but with just 1 CO line connected and I didn't see anything funky going on.

Days like this make me wish I joined the circus

Test your line current, anything over 35mA can cause your problem
Pots

I'd stick a SLT on the line to prove its the lines. Only had this once on a 7200 when BT put a DACS on the line as they didnt have enough pairs.

Test your line current,anything over 35mA can cause your problem: if it is can they or will they lower it? And have you seen it cause phantom ringing on all the lines?

Adi: When you say SLT do you mean feeding an analog station into the CO port?

BT: I'm assuming British Telecom, I'm not sure what a DACS is though, so what should I ask AT&T over here?

Thanks for the replys all,

Mark

I'm not the OP, but what I think he meant was to have you connect an analog phone directly to the CO Lines. What I would recommend is connecting an analog phone to each CO Line and then connect the CO Lines to the system. If both the analog phones and the system phones start ringing with phantom rings, then it's an AT&T problem. If the system phones start ringing, but the analog phones don't ring, then the issue is with the system.

Digital access and cross-connect systems (DACS) are large matrix switches used to aggregate, groom, and redirect traffic on telecom networks. They usually handle Sonet voice traffic, as well as time-division multiplexed (TDM) leased lines. Data-networking technologies such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Internet Protocol (IP) are gradually being added to some products.

Yeh as CIT just said have the system and a SLT connected to the lines and see if they both ring on the phantom calls.

DACS over here is when bt ran out of pairs to a site and its used to get 2 analogue lines from 1 pair. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Access_Carrier_System

Can also try defaulting to see if it still does it and restore if not.

If it is hot C.O.s causing the trouble, you may have to make adjustments yourself because the telco not only won't fix it, they won't know what you are talking about.

Demonstrate the problem to the customer and they can deduct your labor and materials to fix the problem via their phone bill.

Sandman has 'filters' than install on a 66 block that will reduce the MA.

Thanks everyone for all the good advice and info,
What I plan on doing which will hopefully buy me some time to figure this out and pin point who's side the trouble is on is to:
Step:1
Program up a DCS compact with the same configuration as they have now on the 7100 (5-28 button falcons & 4 COs) plug everything into the compact and see what happens, if the lines continue to flip out then I guess I'll know if it's on AT&T's side, unless of course Murphy's law will say that the compact's co card isn't as sensitive to higher line voltage as the 7100. (then I'm screwed)

Step 2:
Feed the 4 single line ports of the 7100 or compact back into the 4trm card of the 7100 with 1 28 B falcon as the answer point and again, see what happens (my gut says zilch) or I could tap off the AT&T lines to both switches at the same time. Any thoughts on that one? Or here's another one, program the 4 Single Lines's on the compact in with the operator group and then feed them into the 7100 as CO's??

Step 3: Overnight a 4trm and eat the cost, I should have a spare in stock anyway.

Step 4: if the customer is still not satisfied with my service after all of this, especially if it turns out to be an AT&T issue, I will give up and become a rodeo clown.

Mark (future buckeroo )

Noisycow,
Sorry I missed your post, I forgot about sandman that may be step 4 before the rodeo clown career thing.

Thanks

I looked up DACS and now it has me thinking (not saying that's a good thing) but here it is:

A few other odd things happened at the customer site.

1) Their DSL was down when I arrived onsite with the sync light steady on but no access to the net and it was wired and filtered direct to the fax xxx-3861 that line wasn't going into the 7100 so I left it wired as is. The DSL tech was already coming out to work the trouble so I ignored it, that was also the day that I called in trouble on the CO's when the ringing started and AT&T confirmed trouble (opens) on 2 of the 4 lines going into the 7100 and then sent another tech out to deal with those, I also believe 1 of the lines was a recent addition because the customer complain to me about how long it took AT&T to get the new line in.

2) At one point 2 lines rang in simultaneously on the 7100 and the customer lost internet at the exact same moment and remember the DSL line wasn't on the 7100.

3)I left the building for 30 minutes to run to the hardware store and when I came back the customer told me that the fax number was now ringing in on line 4 on the 7100, so I ID the line and sure enough the fax number was on line 4 and line 4 xxx-xx66 was on the fax and I know I didn't change any wiring on the backboard BUT their DSL was synced up and working, by now my head is spinning and I'm questioning my sanity.

I tried to explain this to the customer but I might as well of been speaking Martian to him and his response was "just fix it" so I rewired the MDF and sent the filter xxx-xx66 back into the 7100 and routed the xxx-3861 fax line back into the fax.

I guess the bottom line question is: the AT&T techs have been treating this like a bad pair issue, but is there a likely possibility that they may be using a DACS down the line and the configuration is screwed up?

By the way before the 7100 they had the 4 line phone circuit city setup, they said it sucked but didn't go into great detail.

I have no idea if DACS is used over the pond so wouldnt really rely on that. But from the above it sounds like its a problem with the lines not the kit.

Stick the DCS on a prove it from that.

Here's the update so if anyone has any input feel free.

Monday: I arrived onsite at 7:45 am with the DCS compact programmed up and cabled for a quick swap out. AT&T wasn't onsite.

The 7100 was quiet as a mouse, I punched 701-704 for DT all good and clean, I sat there from 7:45am until 9:00am watching all the incoming and outgoing calls, since everything was working perfect I decided not to move anything over to the Compact, half thinking that AT&T worked the trouble out over the weekend.

I told the customer that they were still on the Original "New" system and since everything was working that I would go do another job and to call me if it flips out again.

11:50am: I get the call that the lines are going crazy etc so I head back to the customer site.

12:30PM: I walk into the building and asked if the phones were still going nuts and they reply Yep.

it took me less than 10 minutes to move everything over to the compact, all the lines are up and working normal and I wait to see if they flip out...nothing

I sat there from 12:45pm until 3:30pm and the 6 year old compact system worked perfect so while I waited, I blasted the 7100 with 4 analog ports from the compact and it seemed to be working fine too, I also copied the alarm report from the 7100, here's a portion:

MNF06 11/14/2008 14:24:27 Trunk Disconnect C1-S02-P03
MNF07 11/14/2008 14:33:09 Trunk Connect C1-S02-P04
MNF07 11/14/2008 15:08:59 Trunk Connect C1-S02-P03
MNF06 11/14/2008 15:27:40 Trunk Disconnect C1-S02-P03
MNF06 11/14/2008 15:27:54 Trunk Disconnect C1-S02-P03
MNF07 11/14/2008 15:29:55 Trunk Connect C1-S02-P03
MNF06 11/17/2008 08:02:56 Trunk Disconnect C1-S02-P02
MNF06 11/17/2008 08:03:00 Trunk Disconnect C1-S02-P02
MNF07 11/17/2008 08:03:24 Trunk Connect C1-S02-P02
MNF06 11/17/2008 12:58:06 Trunk Disconnect C1-S02-P01
MNF07 11/17/2008 12:59:57 Trunk Connect C1-S02-P01
Could these alarms just be me unplugging DT etc.?

If you notice that there is nothing happening at all on the 15th SAT or the 16th SUN when they are closed.

Also while I waited I had a new 4trm overnighted
and cleared the media card, defaulted the 7100 and uploaded the programming back in.

As it stands now the compact is still the working system, but I'm a little less than confident at this point that the new 4TRM will solve the problem.

any ideas?

Is AT&T willing to monitor these POTS lines for a few days?

Can you set up your amp cables so the end user could just plug from the 7100 to the compact if you are using the 7100 and it gets the heebie jeebies? It would take some time to set up but be less pressure on you.

AT&T: I doubt it, but I've been reading up on the high/low line current issue after Pots posted, so I'm going to meter the lines tomorrow and see where that takes me.(maybe to Mike Sandman)

AMP Cables: I already have it set up that way but as far as the end user goes, lets just say he's not technically incline and doesn't want to be.

What I may do because "I" have the "heebie jeebies" is let the Compact run most of the day tomorrow to see if the lines freak and when I do put the new 4trm in I'll leave the compact as the main for a day or 2 while tapping off the CO's into the 7100 & 1 phone and then monitor it before I swing it over and keep my fingers crossed.

Another update and I hope I'm not boring anyone but this has kind of become my journal of events.

The Compact has been running like a top now as of 5:00 pm today "Tue" I went to the site around 2pm with the replacment 4trm and swapped it out but I didn't move them over to the 7100 yet, instead what I did was leave the compact SL exts 209 through 210 fed into the CO ports of the 7100, put the compact into night mode which routes 701 to SG 501 with ext 209, 702-502-210 etc. and I'll let that ride until tomorrow afternoon, I'm not sure if this will be a valid test but at this point I just don't have the stomach for it to just swing it over and wait...

You are not boring anyone, the 7100 seems to have fascinating bugs in the Chinese sense.

Thank you I appreciate that, but as far as 7100 bugs go I haven't been able to find anyone or any tech bullentin with a similar trouble, I sent an email via my Distributor to Samsung tech support first thing this morning but haven't heard anything back, Because if this new 4trm does the same thing after I connect it direct to the 7100 (likely 2+ hrs after I leave the site)the customer's heads going to explode and he'll think I sold him POS equipment and/or I don't know what I'm doing, either way not good for me or my reputation, not to mention my pocket.

So I would like to find out before hand if Samsung found the if above or below xxMA causes crossover mass ringing or something like that.

I still haven't metered the lines yet, so I'll need to do that before I swing it direct, but if it's just happening in spikes at random times during the day...ok now I'm over thinking it and just stressing myself out..lol

Make sure you take different readings... including when a line is ringing.

I have check with STA Tech Support and they have not had anybody report this issuue with calls disconnecting. They did say that they are looking for the CO's to be between 28-35 Ma. Did you ever get a reading on the CO lines at the job site? Also, How is AT&T delivering the ciruit to your system? Is it some type of VoIP circuit that is being converted on site to an analog CO, or does the line come directly from the CO as analog?

Not disconnecting. phantom incoming ringing on all 4 lines at the same time but only intermittenly and once it starts it goes nuts for quite awhile

CO's: they say it's on copper all the way back to the central office.

Readings: I'm going to do that today, but I'm really hoping that I just got a bad 4trm out of the box.

Update:

I went to the site this afternoon to swap over to the 7100 and wait..

As I mentioned before I had them running on the compact in night service and feeding single line ext's into the co's of the 7100 so when an incoming call came in it also rang in on the 7100 etc.

1)before I swung it over, I checked the 7100 Alarm report and everything was clear: No trunk connect/Disconnect so far a good sign.

2) I check the loop current on their lines.

Line 1 44ma. Line 2 through 4 38ma: Bad sign

So for "fun" I check the Line current on 2 of the analog ports from the compact that I've been feeding into the 7100 as CO's and they read "49ma" which the 7100 seems to be happy as a clam with.

So I announce to the customer that I'm swapping it over and I did...

10 minutes later all 4 co lines on the 7100 light up all at once and once again I scramble to swing it back to the Compact and all is quiet again. also the alarm report showed trunk disconnect/connect.

I immediately get on the phone with samsung Tech support and explain my tale of woe in which they told me and I did:

1) Default the system and reprogram it by hand

I also moved the 4trm to the 2nd slot and the keysets and single lines to the 3rd slot so:
1)MCP 2)trm 3)DLM DLM SLM

I also just returned from radio shack with a multitude of various mishmash of resistors to try on the CO lines. if that works but the volume is low then I guess I buy the Sandman gizmos.

What I planned to do in the morning is to split off the 4 CO's to both go directly into the compact and the 7100, hopefully the 7100 doesn't backfeed the trouble into the compact, if it doesn't then I should be able to troubleshoot without the customer blowing a gasket.

On a personal note, this is about a mile past sucking.

I don't see the possibility of one trunk with hot amperage making all four ring.

I agree that is in the sucking category, but try another test that may sort things out, maybe not.

Parallel each line to both the 7100 and a single line set, preferable an old Bell/AT&T/GTE/Northcom type with a REN of 1.0.

When the 7100 goes nuts, do all four s/l phones ring or only one s/l and the four ports on the 7100?

One more test: With the lines unplugged from any equipment, put a tone generator on line one and using a buttset with the speaker on high, climb on line two, then line three, then line four. See if you hear a bleed through on any of them, if so there is not sufficient isolation from the Telco side.

Repeat this test with the tone on line two and the buttset on line three and then line four.

Repeat this test with the tone on line three and the buttset on line four.

If no bleed through on any combination, you have good isolation from the Telco and put that possibility to rest.

Does this craziness start only when line one rings? You could short out line one and see if the 7100 remains calm with line two, three or four ringing. That would sort it down to line one only.

One last test, reverse the order, put line four into line one position, line three in line two position. This may be meaningless if you have swapped the 4TRM but they then could have both come from the same mfg. batch.

Remember that when the guy said, "Cheer up, things could be worse." He cheered up and sure enough things got worse.

I just copied and pasted your suggestions to my desktop : )

I did the test for bleed over last week with my toner and really couldn't hear much, that was when AT&T was working on their problems.

when the 3rd line went dead on Friday "after" they worked on it, I did monitor it with my butt set and I could hear cross ringing and then they got DT back on it and said everything was okey dokey on their end.

The major stumbling block to all this as far as shooting the trouble goes is that I can't bring the lines down or the customer flips so I have to try and do it without causing then any down time, I asked him tonight if he would let me stay there after hours and I would let myself out and he said sorry I can't do that.

I'd like to go in there on a Saturday when they're closed and let the switch go nuts until I figured it out, which I may ask to do but I don't think he'll go for it, that's why I'm going to try splitting the DT to both switches in the morning and Hope the the 7100 flips but doesn't effect the compact. my luck hasn't been too good lately though, maybe better luck tomorrow.

I really appreciate all the feedback, thanks

There are a bunch of tests to make and if the customer won't give you time after closing to do them then he/she is taking all the responsibility and I would simply say that you can't prove that it is in the 7100 or in the dial tones without his help and I need my Compact back, thanks and bye.

You have no proof it is or is not your equipment at this point and you have no obligation to continue with an obdurate customer.

Time to send him a fax outlining the time it will take to do the tests and stating that without his/her cooperation you will be unable to further service his location.

With four lines this is not someone who has achieved the status of financial genius and you have a right to the time to do your job. Sometimes you have to say, My way or the highway, I have your money and you won't let me make it work.

I've got to agree... if the client won't let you work on this after hours, then he needs to accept the fact he might be down during the day. We tell customers if they want a problem fixed, we need to take the system down. If they want us to do it after hours, we tell them what our overtime rate is and let them make the decision.

Forgot to mention, just order the pads and be done with it. Older systems from Samsung, like the Compact, are more tolerant to line voltage. We actually had to take a Samsung out and place an older Avaya in a customer's site because they were two doors down from the Central Office and the lines were really hot.

We keep several on hand just for this reason.

Ok here's another frustrated update folks:

7:15AM I arrived onsite, I was a man with a plan (sorry I'm getting punchy) anyway..

The customers on the old reliable compact, I put line splitters in all 4 co biscuit jacks and split them into both switches, I watch the lines come in and out on both ksu's and putz on the laptop looking at the 7100 program and VM until aprox 11:45AM and everything looks great, no blips or bloops on either switch but I'm still not feeling optimistic because I've had a rough 7 days, but I bite the bullet and throw it over to the 7100 and wait and watch until roughly 1:00pm, I'm petrified to leave because I know it watches me, I even set in the parking lot waiting..

I finally get the guts up to head down the road and I don't get 2 exits down I-40 when I get the call that it's flipping out again. the first thing out of my mouth was "it's the resistance" because it was fine sharing the lines with the compact, so I turn around and head back to Hell armed with resistors. here are my reading before and after:

Line 1 828-XXX-3860 44 MA after 470 OHM 1/4 watt = 23.90MA

Line 2 828-XXX-3862 38 MA after 220 OHM 1/4 watt = 27.73MA

Line 3 828-XXX-0565 38 MA after 220 OHM 1/4 watt = 28.46MA

Line 4 828-XXX-0566 38 MA after 330 OHM 1/4 watt = 24.88MA

This time around I felt almost confident and packed up my toys and the compact and left the site.

4:15PM I get the flipping out call again 2x's in 5 minutes

I head back and throw the compact in and take the 7100 off the wall and put it in the truck, I also lost the will to live (TMI ? )

So for the last few hours I have been feeding my 2 CO lines in and I can't even make it blink.

The only way I can remotely recreate the trouble is to tie a 470 ohm resistor to the ring of pair of line 1 and 2, when I do that both lines light up and usually says No caller ID recieved, they then disconnect and I get the connect/disconnect alarm.

I also ran out to the dollar store and bought 4 of the cheapest crap SL I could find with REN 1.8
which I plan to connect to the splitters per the OBHH bunnie and see what happens.

This sucks really really bad and I don't think it's all the 7100's fault but you would think they would at least make it as durable as the older models.

The Bunnie is sad. You didn't listen to the Bunnie. You didn't go on site with four single line phones. You didn't short out line one when it was freaking out. You said you copied my suggestions but you didn't take them with you, did you? I sit here wearing out my thinking cap and you don't take the paper with you. Oh the Bunnie is so sad. <grin>

One suggestion I have, may seem odd but this did work for me a few years back on an older sammy model, can't remember exact details of the fault now but it was to do with ringing and the fix in the end was to have all 4 lines on the system the same polarity.

Sorry, I didn't mean to make you sad bunnie.
The test suggestions are on the desktop of my laptop...I swear I swear. but the stupid thing doesn't happen when I'm watching it. I'm taking the 4 SL's over there today and I'm hoping that I'll hear some crossover ringing. I'm leaving the 7100 out of it for awhile and just look for trouble on AT&T side.

Sammy Tech: that what I was thinking too, but I checked and corrected polarity last week.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CIT:Forgot to mention, just order the pads and be done with it: PADS..what are pads, I want some if it will get me out of this.

Sandmans regulators for co lines, He has several flavors and they all do the jobs they are made for. Sadly the CO does not have to tighten the tolerances on lines so you have to do it. Link one Link two

Thanks for the link, I only had a chance to swing by the site this morning because I had another project to do which felt like a reprieve.

I'm going to head out there in the morning and test the CO's at the customer interface outside the building because I still can't get access off business hours (company policy) to fiddle with it at the back board and if I fiddle during business hours and lines flip out then they flip out. I'm getting Phone guy PTSD.

Thanks again everybody,

Saturday update:

Telephone Line Diagnostic Table Customer_______________ Pg __ of __

Telephone / Line Number > 1 2 3 4

On-Hook DCV 24 to 50VDC 51.8 51.8 51.8 51.8

Off-Hook DCV 5 to 15VDC 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5

Loop Current2 DCma 23 to 35ma 45.5 37.75 39.18 38.35

On-Hook ACV3 - T to R <.5VAC 0.005 0.774 0.773 0.004

On-Hook ACV3 - T to Grnd <.5VAC 1.760 1.773 1.754 2.200

On-Hook ACV3 - R to Grnd <.5VAC 0.005 0.005 0.005 0.006

AC Ring Voltage >75VACRMS 84v 84v 84v 84v

Open Loop going Off-Hook4 <20ms : I didn't do these last 4 test because frankly I didn't have a clue, plus I was freezing my butt off.

CPC Open Loop Duration4 500ms

Circuit Loss1 -db -5.5 to -8.5db

Using 1KC Tone MW phone number1:

Also on all 4 lines I picked up a local AM radio station with my butt set. Might be something??

The Loop Current DCma: I brought those down to the 23ma to 28ma range with resistors at the backboard last week but it didn't stop the phantom ringing on the 4 lines.

All test were performed at customer Demarc on the outside of building.

I also tested for: cross talk with toner: none found
cross ring with meter: none found
cross ring by connecting 4 cheap SL sets to each line and calling into each line to see if one of the other lines would even ring a little bit: ZILCH


Things to ponder: On hook ACV T to grnd is High according to the chart and AM radio station coming over the lines.

I'll give Mike Sandman a call and email him this on Monday and see what he thinks.

Note to Bunnie: when/if I put the 7100 back on the site I will split off the DT with the SL sets and the 7100 and see what happens

Try with the 7100 in parallel with single line phones and see if all four s/l phones ring as well as the all four lines on the 7100.

Try shorting out line one on the 7100 and leave the building.

Try putting the lines in using reverse order, 701=line 4, 702=line three, etc.

Do they understand that they are paying you for your time if this is proven to be a CO provider problem?

Hey Bunnie, thanks for hanging in there : )

I've been thinking about the 7100 in parallel with the single lines and I intend on trying that tomorrow BUT! what if attaching the SL sets prevent the trouble from happening and if so, why? The reason I bring this up is because I had the 7100 CO's in parallel with the compact CO's and it never blinked in 4+ hours of watching it, it didn't act up again until the 7100 had the 4 CO lines all to itself, unless of course I'm just having so much over the top freaking bad luck and timing with this.

I think what may be helpful is to compare the measurements the I took yesterday at the site and take the same measurements in parallel while it's still attached to the Compact to see if there is any significant drop in any of the readings.

I was also thinking of:
1) remounting the 7100 & feeding the 4 CO's directly into it. "nothing in Parallel"
2) keep the customer on the Compact keysets.
3) feed the 4 analog ports of the 7100 into the trunk ports of the Compact and program so trunk 701 rings Analog 209 rings etc.
4)program the 4 7100 analogs with immediate off hook select EX: 209 grabs 701 210 grabs 702 etc. So while the customer works off the Compact, hopefully they won't notice the difference and if need be I'd just need to swing the 4 CO's back into the Compact. That should also take the 7100's 2 DLM's out of the equation somewhat.
5)This involves a "Flux Capacitor" which I haven't fully worked out yet.

if it's a Provider Problem: In a perfect world I could say AaHA! see it's them, gimme money : ) but I think in reality especially since the Compact works fine there, the best I can hope for is to figure out the cause, eliminate it and then resign myself to the fact that I'm going to take a major butt whooping in labor time and just slink away...Oh and seek mental health therapy.

Another update because I have an unhealthy obsession to figure this out an be done with it.

I brought the 7100 back on Thursday and had it on the bench with 2 real CO lines plugged into it all weekend and the alarm logs are showing nothing, except when I tried to hose it up by tying the rings together with a resistor.

I took the same readings on my lines today as I took at the site and other than the loop current ma readings and the on-hook DC: Mine- 45 site-51.8 everything else was pretty much the same even the AC T to grnd were around 1.7xx. The ONLY big difference was that I could not pick up any AM radio stations no matter how many ways that I moved my arms around. "picture that in your head"

So whoever is still reading this war and peace size thread the question is:

Any thoughts on the AM radio coming over ALL the CO lines at the site. I did a mapquest from station to site and they run along RR tracks 5 miles apart and I'm guessing the aerial cable runs the same route.

The PURPOSE of the s/l sets is to see if ALL of them ring when the craziness starts or if only line one rings on both the 7100 and the s/l set. It is a TEST.

The PURPOSE of shorting out line one is a test to see if that one line causes the problem.

The PURPOSE of putting the lines in reverse order is to see if it is the FIRST line position on the 7100 that is causing trouble.

If you have a radio station coming in on dial tones, then GROUND every wire that is not being used for dial tone on the protector. Ground any unused pairs on the cable from the protector to the KSU.

Radio stations broadcast from towers and Mike Sandman has chokes you can use if GROUNDING all spare pairs does not work adequately.

Get a sleeping bag and don't come home until you have done all the tests for several hours.

Hey Mark.
You KNOW I would have busted a nut by now. I think the bunny has some good advice. I'd try those tests before I headed for the rodeo. Can't really see you in a barrel anyway. Good Luck.
dialin'

Hey Dave,
Trust me I DO know that your head would have exploded about 2 weeks back and my noodle is close to the popping point now.

And yes the Bunnie does have good advice "Thank you Bunnie"

But what I have done before I do anything else is that I've Ordered 4 of those AM radio stopper filters and then I went to the customer site today and showed him that he has Christian radio on all of his phone lines coming in right up to the backboard "he shrugged and walked away" I also pleaded on bended knee for him to ask his main office to let me go in after hours and let me do my thing. "He'll get back to me on that"

Until then they're working off the compact.
My line in the sand has been drawn "sorta"

Aye Aye Captain Bunnie : )

The sleeping bag order made me laugh, thanks I needed that.

I ordered the sandman AM radio chokes and I'm pushing to get in there after hours,so until the gizmos arrive I'm stepping back and giving my brain a rest. The customer is on the Compact and it's working fine and I'm on the 7100 which is also working fine.

Thanks again for all of the input and if a solution comes out of this mess, I will definitely post it.

I wonder if the 7100 is seeing the AM radio as a ring signal... AM can really do wonky things to computerized electronics. Any RF can, but AM seems to be more scary because its power is varying in amplitude.

Oddities i've seen in this matter: a trucker friend of mine had bought/built/modified a 100 watt AM power amplifier for his CB radio. He could make city traffic lights change just by keying the mic.

I once crashed an old Meridian SL-1M simply by keying a 2 way radio in the PBX room. (i was a dumb army private and didnt know yet, the base commander was pretty unhappy and i was sent back to RF from telecom)

Hope those filters work for you

Did you ground all the unused pairs coming from the demark to the 7100/compact?

Did you ground all the unused pairs at the demark?

The AM is coming right from the CO DEMARC on all 5 lines: 4 into he switch and 1 to the fax, if I clip off on TIP and hold the ring clip in my hand and touch the CO ring side with my finger "in Monitor" I pick up the station and to pump up the volume I tap the ring clip to the ring CO terminal screw and it becomes as loud as a transistor radio...Haaaaallalllooya

I also was told yesterday via email through my distributor, that Samsung told them that Yes AM RF causes the 7100 to phantom ring but there isn't a tech bullentin or anything else in writing about it.

I received the AM filters today so I guess I'll find out on Monday if this works,also I haven't had 1 Alarm or blip on the 7100 since I've been using it for almost a week now.

Good Joke BTW and Happy Thanksgiving

The CO provider is responsible for providing clear dial tone. It's facilitative for your customer that you bought the filters, but it is not your obligation.

If the COs are not clear, get a meet with the provider and have them fix it.

I will after I put on the filters and I make sure that it clears the trouble.

Other than that I think in reality at least in this case I'm in a no win situation because the customer's not going to be able appreciate the fact that I busted my butt to find the problem, all they'll remember is that they bought a new system and it took the phone guy 3 weeks to get it working.

AT&T may clear the trouble on their end, but that's about it.

Samsung's not going to compensate me even though they didn't make their new systems as solid as the old systems regarding trunk issues, the very least they could & should do is put out a tech bullentin and inform their tech support people, instead of telling people to swap cards and reprogram the switch by hand etc.

Nope, if this works I will just walk away and hope like hell that I never hear from this customer again.

Assuming that the filters either you or AT&T puts on allow the system to work, why would you not want to keep them for adds, moves and changes? They didn't do anything wrong, they trusted you and bought a system from you.

No, I'm sorry if it read that way. I'm not blaming the customer at all, I'm just getting very frustrated.

I installed the Filters yesterday on the 7100 that I ordered and watched the calls for over an hour, but just as I was driving away the customer called my cell and said it was flaking out again, so I went back inside and did the following:

1) connected 4 SL sets in parallel with the 7100 to see if the phones would ring when the switch flipped and they didn't

2) Disconnected and shorted the main # after 30-45 minutes all the lines lit up at the same time.

3) I did the same on the 3rd line, same thing. Even the lines that didn't have a CO connected would ring. I also moved the lines around on the TRM ports. I didn't do lines 2 and 4 because they were closing.

I ended up putting them back on the compact and the trouble went away.

I called the line tech for AT&T and he was going to talk to his supervisor about putting chokes on their side but I haven't heard anything back yet.

I'm also going to try another MP10 when that arrives and see what happens. The only thing left after that is the cabinet.

I used the 7100 at my place for over a week and not once did I see this trouble happen, so logic says that it's coming from their lines but I'm not sure of anything anymore.

If as you say, Samsung acknowledged having a problem with 7100s with high radio on the line, then getting AT&T out there with THEIR chokes, filters or whatever will probably be the only thing that will solve this.

I appreciate you doing the tests. Without the other s/l phones ringing you have proved this problem is not coming in from AT&T ringing all lines at once and strange things do happen.

By busying out the main line, you have proved the multiple ringing problem is not tied to the main line.

When you saw even lines that didn't have a CO line start to ring, it 99.9999% proves you don't have an AT&T fault other than the music.

I often refer people to Mike Sandman and I would trust his radio filters but the problem could be so bad AT&T has to do something else.

I had radio on a CO so bad you could wave the buttset clips by the terminal without touching it and have blaring music and PacBell (at the time) had to come out and literally switch out pairs back to the central office. Just grounding all the other pairs in the terminal outside the office was not enough.

My best guess is that AT&T has to quiet those lines down and a few letters to Samsung about how they need to improve the tolerance to music will at least document in writing they have a problem.

You've done your tests, all that is needed is for AT&T to give you clear lines.

Maybe if you print out all these posts and hand them to the business office they will take pity and get an expert on the case who has successfully dealt with this problem before.

Good luck to you.

Out of curiosity, did you do a ground check? Like check to see if the ground on the outlet and the KSU ground - was actually ground, and not floating?

If the 7100 trunk circuits are indicating ringing with nothing connected to them and the system performs flawlessly elsewhere it is almost certainly conducted EMI/RFI getting into the system, and not necessarily off the CO lines.

It could be something getting in on the mains supply due to either bad/missing grounding or interference. Is the UPS you are using online or offline - the latter pass the mains straight through when not operating so may not be doing much to filter mains interference.

Alternatively it could be interference being conducted back in on the station connections, are the DLM/SLM modules on the same UNI as the trunk module.

Yeah,I did that the other day. I set the meter on OHMS and 1 lead to the system the the other lead to an outlet ground which read .1 or .2.

I'm still waiting to hear back from the AT&T tech, I'll give him another call later this morning.

I don't even want to go back out there until AT&T at least does something/anything to the lines.

tdw: The TRM is on the Uni all by it's self and the UPS is a new APC 350.

Way back in the beginning of this thread I wrote that I was feeding analog ports off the Compact into the 7100 but they were using the Falcon sets off of the compact and on another occaision I had the CO lines split off with the 7100 and the Compact and again they were using the Falcons on the compact, so both times I just had 1 Falcon set connected to the 7100 and it never flipped out.

You may be onto something, I may be getting interference from one of the keysets that doesn't bother the compact but effects the 7100.

I haven't been back out there yet, but the AT&T tech told me today that he was told they were sending somebody out there to put chokes on the lines. I'll find out tomorrow if they did. One of the Falcon sets is about 2 feet from a standup electric heater at the front counter which is always on so it's something else to check.

Thanks everybody

Just an update, since I haven't solved the problem yet because I've been busy on other jobs and couldn't babysit the switch for any length of time.

I went out there last week to see if AT&T choked off the AM radio on their side but it was still there, so I grounded all unused pairs coming from the Demarc and all the unused pairs going to the station ports, I also found the AM signal on their single line ports going to the cordless sets but once again the compact is purring along fine.

So this coming week, I'm going to place the AM filters right at the Demarc on the outside of the building and if I can't close the door, I'm going to put a plastic bag over it and see what happens. Their Fax line that doesn't terminate into the KSU and is unfiltered so I'm hoping that it doesn't bleed over somehow, in hindsight I should have purchased a filter for that also but I was PO'd and feeling cheap.

If AT&T won't bother to fix the problem, you can file a Public Utilities Complaint. They hate those, it is more paperwork than they want to deal with.

From all of this detective work, I would say we have determined the 7100 to be inadequate at handling line noise that is commonly handled by older Samsung equipment and if indeed Samsung does care about it they won't tell you if they are working on a cure or not so your only two choices as I see it are to give them a refund or have AT&T do their job.

If I can block it right at the Demarc and the trouble goes away then I'll push the issue harder with AT&T, righteous indignation and all that..lol

If a Queen had balls she could be a King.

Update #532
Ok, I say this with trepidation, continuous wood knocking while throwing salt over my shoulder.... but the trouble may be cleared.

Here's the low down:
1)I went out to the site on Tuesday and placed 2 of the Sandman AM filters right on the outside DEMARC that go to trk 701 & 702 of the 7100 and left the other 2 filters plugged directly into the 7100 for 703 & 704.

2)While I was at the outside Demarc listening for the AM radio I started hearing a surge of line noise on my buttset that would rise and fall and coincided with a Clang from a machine press that was inside the warehouse, so I ran to the front of the warehouse as fast as my stubby legs would carry me and lines 701 & 702 were normal BUT 703 & 704 were going nuts. Eureka!!!

Every time they ran that machine the lines would flip, So I called AT&T to have them meet me out there the next day and I then moved the customer back onto the DCS compact.

Next day: I met the AT&T tech onsite and explained what I found and pointed out to him that the CO ground was tied to the Electric Panel ground which was about 20ft from the clanging press machine and was it possible to put the CO's on a separate ground because that's where I thought the interference was getting in. Unfortunately, he said he couldn't because it would cause an imbalance and if lightning struck yada yada, but what he could do was put his AM filters on 4 of the five lines (the 5th line had DSL which is also line 704 on the 7100) so I said fine whatever you can do.

So with trk 701-702-703 now filtered at the DEMARC I had them crank up the press machine and trunk 704 is the only one flipping out, so now I'm hopeful..but not too hopeful. I then went out to the Demarc and split off the DSL on one pair and on another pair stuffed the Sandman filter into the box and sent it on to trk 704 via DSL filter to the 7100 and so far a full day and a half later I haven't received the screaming your system sucks call..but tomorrow's another day.

Note: The press machine only runs when they have an order of metal roof to make so it could run on any given day for 10-20-30 minutes and be off for 3 hours or it could be off almost the entire day and then have to run some sheets at the end of the day. I think you can see where I'm going with this.

Thank you Bunnie & everyone once again for all of the input.

Awesome troubleshooting, we had a similar problem on a Norstar - a welder next door would cause the whole system to just reboot every time they struck an arc with it. Some special high frequency unit... We had the phone system moved to one of the phases that welder wasnt on, and presto... fixed. Hope that's the end of troubles with that customer, and just in time for some holiday cheer - they should be getting you a nice bottle of something that warms the insides. - for that matter, so should samsung for not putting enough RFI protection on the 7100!

Thank you,
this had to be the most frustrating trouble I've ever dealt with in 20 years of doing this and honestly I feel like I just eventually stumbled onto the answer, but I'll take it : ) If that machine was in another building like your Norstar problem I'm not so sure I would have found it.

As for the customer reaction, let's just say he seemed pretty underwhelmed by the fix but I told him that he may want to get an electrician to take a look at his equipment and particularly his ground.

Samsung: From what I gather they know the problem exists on the engineering side and hopefully they'll pass it on to the tech support side but apparently I seem to be the first "lucky one" to run into it on the field side but if nothing else it might save another Tech out there a butt load of stress.

Have a great Holiday

Congratulations on the troubleshooting, that was very smart work.

Normally the LEC ties their lightening protections to a cold water pipe or a copper coated steel rod driven at least six feet in the ground.

Maybe the tech doesn't really know what he can do, as in doesn't want to be bothered to do. If there is a cold water pipe nearby, there is no reason you couldn't run a large gauge copper wire, at least as big as the current ground, to the cold water pipe and use a proper grounding clamp. That would be at least as good as anything AT&T puts in.

Thank you Bunnie,
Smart work: You know that old saying about a thousand monkeys banging on a thousand typewriters? I think I've figured out why I've been craving bananas lately. : )

I waited all day Friday for "The call" insulting my system, me and my parentage but it never came, so I may be finally out of the woods on this. (I do recognize how paranoid I sound btw)

Grounding: Their Electrical panel terminates to a ground rod pretty much right behind it on the outside of the building on which AT&T ties on to, but the actual Electric meter is located at another part of the building, I think they probably have a loose ground in the panel or something wired bass ackwards in that press machine. If I get sucked back into this somehow then I may look for another ground point and/or tell them to call their electrician.

Have A merry Christmas

AS I suggested before, move the demark ground to a cold water pipe with a big thick copper wire and a proper ground clamp.

And you do certainly deserve a pat on the back for the level of your dedication and your detective work. Us out here typing on the computers would have never heard that machine start up so being on site is the only solution on occasion.

Oh, and you might see if there are any markings on the AT&T chokes. If those were better than the Sandman ones, it would be good for us to know about it and maybe where to buy them.

Happy Chanukkah and Merry Christmas