A bunch of useless crap
Published on May 6, 2007 By MasonM In Blogging
I stumbled out of bed this morning, put on some coffee, and picked up the phone to call my mother. No dial tone. WTF? I booted up my PC and verified that the DSL service was working. Ok, so it's just the phone. It's too early for this crap.

I called Mom on my cell phone and wished her a happy Mother's Day. She thanked me and said that it's next Sunday, not this Sunday. Oh. I really should be fully awake before making phone calls.

After a couple of cups of coffee I grabbed the phone and went out to the connection point outside the house. I plugged into the test port and had a dial tone. Ok, so the problem was between there and the inside jack. I went back inside and plugged directly into the jack, bypassing the DSL filter and surge protector. No dial tone.

After a bit of examination I determined that in the course of doing the weed trimming the maintenance guy had pulled the phone wire partially out of the connection. Just enough to kill the dial tone but not enough to kill the DSL. I reconnected the line and sure enough everything was working again. It was way too early for this crap, I should have caught that right off the bat.

I need more coffee.


Comments
on May 06, 2007
You scared me there for a minute!    Whew! It is next Sunday...
on May 06, 2007
on May 06, 2007
You scared me there for a minute! Whew! It is next Sunday...


ditto! Don't do that to people

At least you knew how to fix the phone instead of having to wait for the telephone company to come out. Handy man!
on May 06, 2007

you knew how to fix the phone instead of having to wait for the telephone company to come out. Handy man!

Yep,  my thoughts too     and your mom knows that you've got her in your thoughts, even when it isn't Mother's Day   and that's a great thing!

on May 06, 2007

Heh, well, I am trying to remember what the occasion was, but I did the exact same thing.  Sometimes being awake is a really good idea.

on May 06, 2007
Drink lots of coffee! Just don't forget to call her next Sunday!!

on May 06, 2007

You scared me there for a minute! Whew! It is next Sunday...


ditto! Don't do that to people

At least you knew how to fix the phone instead of having to wait for the telephone company to come out. Handy man!




Well, I worked as an engineer in the telecommunications and IT industries for more than 13 years so I should hope that I could troubleshoot a simple phone line fault.
on May 06, 2007

you knew how to fix the phone instead of having to wait for the telephone company to come out. Handy man!


Yep,  my thoughts too     and your mom knows that you've got her in your thoughts, even when it isn't Mother's Day   and that's a great thing!




Yeah.

I finally burned the DVD for her containing a slideshow of some pictures my youngest brother sent along with the video I had shot on the road. She really liked it.
on May 06, 2007

Heh, well, I am trying to remember what the occasion was, but I did the exact same thing.  Sometimes being awake is a really good idea.




No doubt.
on May 06, 2007

Drink lots of coffee! Just don't forget to call her next Sunday!!






I finally got woke up in time to go down and hook up her DVD player for her so she could watch the DVD I made.
on May 06, 2007
Haha it sounds like you had a really bad start to your day. I hope things improve.
on May 06, 2007

Haha it sounds like you had a really bad start to your day. I hope things improve.


Yeah, I'm not a morning person

thanks.
on May 07, 2007

Funny on the DSL thing.  I would have expected it to be more sensitive to loss of signal than the phone.

Live and learn.

on May 07, 2007

Funny on the DSL thing.  I would have expected it to be more sensitive to loss of signal than the phone.


Live and learn.




Yeah that part confused me for a minute as well until I thought about the frequencies involved. Being at a much higher frequency the DSL signal could jump the small gap where the low frequency dial tone was stopped cold. High frequencies can propagate over a small conductor gap but low frequencies can't.