Wiring an outdoor telephone bell - having problems

iwantbroadband

Hi folks,

We've always had an outdoor telephone bell, which was so old and corroded that we had to replace it. The old one stopped working a while back and was causing a line fault, so the eircom engineer disconnected it from the master socket.

I've since replaced the bell with a new one (from Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/9788013627) but having a bit of trouble wiring it in.

The bell only has two terminals, so no problem there.

I have the latest type of Eircom master socket (NTU). Following this guide I've attached the bell to the L1 and L2 terminals on the CCU part of the socket.

However whenever I call our line, the bell tings once, and no other phones ring. The call never connects.

I tried switching the wires around, but then it seemed to be then picking up the line and not releasing it.

My questions:

• Am I right in saying this is the correct way to wire this?
• Is there a possibility that the wire to the bell is faulty? (is a bit kinked in places)
• Is this the right type of bell for the system? It is made for BT systems, but surely it should be ok?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Many thanks.

ST

The BT Master Socket has a Ring Capacitor that filters out the ring signal. They use 3 wires in the UK for the phone sockets - the extra wire carring the ring signal.

The ring capacitor is built into the Irish Phones.

My guess is that the Bell that you purchased does not have the ring capacitor built in and therefore is not working.

The internal BT Socket wiring and parts can be see on the following pages -

http://www.wppltd.demon.co.uk/WPP/Wiring/UK_telephone/uk_telephone.html

http://www.fineogs.co.uk/phone.html

If you get a RJ11 to BT adapter (like this http://www.maplin.co.uk/bt-us-adaptors-12492 ) and connect it in series with the bell it might work. (note you will probably need the VD36P as it has the ring capacitor).

axle108

Connect one wire to L2 and the other wire to R (middle terminal). The connection should be made on the lower part of the socket. As far as i remember bell is not polarity sensitive, so its not important which wire goes to which terminal. Lets know how it goes.

iwantbroadband

Hi ST and Axle108,

Thanks both for your help, yes indeed the bell doesn't have the required ring capacitor. I wired it to L2 and R as directed which solves this problem, and it works great.

Thanks again!