Euro Meridian

[morph]

I popped into that job today and prefixed the number with 1280 as someone suggested. No joy.

Have you spoken to Castle yet?

[Tallbloke]

No but my boss has. They say there's no point in changing the PCB or modem again and question the line quality. I'm in there tomorrow with a stand alone Scanny digi and I will ring Castle from site.

After I see what the stand alone does, of course.

,

TB

[Tallbloke]

I had a new modem on board so I thought I'd try that first. All was ok so I put the exiasting one back in to see if it worked. It didn't so I refitted the new one. Lo and behold, that one failed! WTF I thought. Like the previous two, this modem would click as if it was going to dial and immediately shut down again. It does this every minute or so.

I rang Castle tech support and explained what had happened.

They told me I couldn't send signals from a digi by testing outputs in the engineer menu despite the fact I had been doing exactly that only minutes earlier. He said the programming must be wrong. Again, I explained that I sent signals earlier and no changes had been made to the programming.

Underwhelmed, I thanked him for his time and put the phone down.

I now have three suspect modems that I will have to test on another panel to see if they are faulty.

I didn't get time to try the stand alone but I think that's the only option left in the absence of another line to connect to.

However, I want know how to make the modem work so if it happens again, we have a proven solution but I may have to admit defeat as the customer is understandably anxious to be monitored ASAP.

[Guest]

Like the previous two, this modem would click as if it was going to dial and immediately shut down again. It does this every minute or so.

i doubt you've got 3 duff modems, what voltage do you have????

have you removed all the sub gear of this shared line?

what happened to the stand alone/ plug on digi???

[Tallbloke]

Like I said, I put a brand new modem in and it worked ok so I put the old one back in to see if that worked and if so, I could blame it on a (second) doff modem. It didn't so I puit the new one back in and it too, failed. Three on the bounce? I think something was frying them.

There was nothing else on the line at the time I was testing.

I was very busy and had to do some breakdowns so didn't have time to do the standalone. Next time.

Oh, yes. 49V

[Guest]

I put a brand new modem in and it worked ok so I put the old one back in to see if that worked and if so, I could blame it on a (second) doff modem. It didn't so I puit the new one back in and it too, failed.

odd have you tested the duff ones on a different endstation? maybe set up a test rig to CHC?

[Tallbloke]

I put tet another new modem in today and it did the same as the others.

I don't know why but I thought I'd check the line termination at the panel end. I found that the line was connected to B and A1. Connected A and B and it worked fine. The existing modem worked fine, too.

I deffo put them in the right terminals so I asked my boss if he'd had the wires out. He admitted he had so I was in the clear. Sorted. Glad to have have a result, I set off home (on time for a change) only to get a call off the customer telling me that the panel showed a telecom fault. AAGH!

I found a short on the cable to the phone socket. Six out of eight cores shorted and the cable is under the skirting. I had two working and warned the customer that the builders could have put a nail through the cable and if it went down, he'd need a block terminal fitted next to the panel.

Lesson learned: don't be afraid to check your bosses work.

[Guest]

I found a short on the cable to the phone socket. Six out of eight cores shorted and the cable is under the skirting. I had two working and warned the customer that the builders could have put a nail through the cable and if it went down, he'd need a block terminal fitted next to the panel.

sounds like sub ran it???

which makes all your visits chargeable

[Tallbloke]

It was my mate so yes, technically it was a subby who ran the cable. It was in a channel around the edge of the ply that had been laid on the hall floor, prior to the stone being laid. I suspect that the builders put a nail through the cable when fixing the skirting boards. It could have been worse and they could have done a zone cable. Of course, that may prove to be the case if more faults start showing up. I'm just glad we seem to have sorted it. For now.

As for charging, it's up to my boss but I can show the cable has shorts on it. Convincing the customer that a nail can cause a fault to appear some time after the it's gone through the cable may take some doing.

As a rule, we don't charge for a non-fix visit so they may have to negotiate on that one.

I should have written 'check your boss's work', although checking that your boss works is always a good idea.

[Guest Castellan]

is he ex caslte or something then??

No James, not "ex" - still.

Actually spend most of my life away from the office and rarely get to log in, so trying to get someone else to keep in touch with the goiungs on here!

Castellan