Phone Oddity

Posted on December 2, 2004. Filed under: Personal Stuff, Technical | Tags: sin |

I’ve had this phone problem for a while, but only recently got motivated enough to fix it.

If you dial my home phone number, it rings 3 times and then rolls over to SBC Call Notes, an automated answering service. You hear my voice saying, “Hi, this is Michael…”

If you hang up and immediately dial me again, it rings once and then a fax machine picks up. A very annoying high pitched whine when you’re expecting my voice. (My voice, by the way, may be many things, but “high pitched whine” doesn’t describe it in any way whatsoever.)

But I don’t own a fax machine. And my computer isn’t plugged into my phone lines either. I had no idea where this fax noise was coming from.

So I called SBC; I thought maybe I had signed up for some fax service and just didn’t remember. SBC said no, I hadn’t, then helpfully transferred me to their repair service to help track it down.

You know what’s causing the fax noise? My home alarm monitoring system which normally uses the phone line to call out is answering the second phone call.

I have to call ADT next and see if they can turn that noise off. And I’m not whining, either. Especially not in a high pitched way.

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Our alarm system knocked out our DSL for the first week or so after it was installed. Which was annoying, but not as weird as when we found out that if we plug our phone into the living room jack, it rings at someone else’s house.

Jo
December 2, 2004