Telephones dont always ring

[bejay]

Hello
My problem concerns telephones which don't always ring.

The arrangement is a master socket to take the incoming telephone cable, this has an answerphone connected. The Master socket has two hardwired extensions, one extension has a telephone connected and the other has a three way adapter to connect three telephones in different rooms; these telephones dont always ring or give only limited rings. After a lot of searching I bought a ren booster but it says to hardwire it, I'm not sure where it should be hardwired or could I plug it directly inbetween the telephone socket and the 3 way adaptor, is it essential to hardwire it into a socket

Hope you can help

 

[Lectrician]

It does sound like a REN issue, especially if your phones are standard rings or 'burp burpers' if that makes sence.

By using the ren booster to 'isolate' the three after the splitter, you should see a fix. If it is a plug in ren booster, just try it!

Other than that, the ren booster needs connected between the master socket and any extension sockets.

 

[OwainDIYer]

... After a lot of searching I bought a ren booster but it says to hardwire it, I'm not sure where it should be hardwired or could I plug it directly inbetween the telephone socket and the 3 way adaptor, is it essential to hardwire it into a socket

If it's the BT REN booster then it plugs into a socket, but you have to hardwire your extensions into the terminal block on the booster. If there's an 'output' socket on the booster, I don't think it's boosted.

Also be aware that the REN booster provides ringing on wire 3 (the bell wire). A lot of modern phones have internal capacitors and take the ringing direct off the 2-wire line. The booster will not help with 2-wire phones. It will also not help if you have microfilters on the boosted extensions.

Also, boosted extensions won't ring during a power cut.

 

[bejay]

The booster is a BT ren booster model CET-10, made in China.

I think I see it now, I can connect the REN booster into the existing extension box socket then hardwire the booster into a new extension box (adjacent to the existing one) and connect the 3 way adapter into that box to increase signal to the 3 way adaptor and three telephones should ring. Thank you