Hi Folks

I have a phone ringer problem. The setup is three phones in series. The master a Uniden, the first slave a cordless Panasonic and the second slave a Custom brand. This is a two wire system.

A few days a go we were informed that people couldn't ring in. However we were able to ring out. In fact people can ring in but as the ringer wasn't working we were oblivious to this.

I called Telecom and they checked the line from the exchange and said it was o'k. The Telecom tech suggested that it was the Uniden phone and sure enough with it out of the loop, the other two phones ring. If you try the Uniden as the only phone it still doesn't ring.

I subsequently purchased a custom brand phone from the Warehouse to replace the Uniden. With the three phones in place, still no ring but the light flashed. With only the the new Custom in place, still no ring. Thinking it was a faulty phone I replaced it with another Custom brand but still no ring. I then replaced the second Custom with a new Uniden. With all three phones in place, no ring. With the new Uniden by itself, a half ring and no flashing light.

Next thinking that perhaps the Capacitor in the master socket was crook I replaced it with a new socket - 2c not 2. The same problems again -  two phones ring without the Uniden third phone in place, the uniden by itself makes a half ring and no light flash. In fact the 2c socket doesn't appear to have a capacitor.

Do you think it is a capacitor problem?  Now I have proved that the old #2 master socket is o'k, should I substitute it for the two slaves, progressively? Is there just enough current to run two ringers and not three and is the Uniden very greedy on resources?

I assume the new 2c sockets rely on the phone having a capacitor? Might I need a plug-in ringing adapter?

Is it more likely to be a Telecom fault from the street box to the house?


I would appreciate your input on this. The stress from this I don't need at the moment after surviving over 2000 earthquakes.

Fred