Turns out Fluke makes a buttset with a TDR built in that can detect shorts and opens out to 3000 ft. so I’m working on getting my hands on one of those. Trying to find the smoking gun I can point at and tell the customer to get their premise wiring fixed. I’m willing to “own the problem” up to the point where I can show it’s not my problem.
Still not sure what a TDR will show if the wiring is a star rather than a daisy chain. Opens could look like bridge taps. Which reminds me, back when I did dry pair DSL, I had a little bridge tap detector. Oh wait, it was a load coil detector. It was just a small battery powered box with an audio oscillator, and a frequency knob, and a meter. You would sweep the frequency and each load coil would cause the meter to dip. I wonder if I still have that somewhere. Probably with my other relics of bygone technology, like my degaussing coil and my VHS tape rewinder. Look, there’s one on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/133724824625 From: AF <[email protected]> On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Friday, June 7, 2024 10:18 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] troubleshooting telco pairs I totally forgot about those. Nice pots line stretchers. From: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Friday, June 7, 2024 6:33 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' Subject: Re: [AFMUG] troubleshooting telco pairs Yes that’s definitely a thing. Did it with Sipura SPA ATA’s a long time ago. Those don’t exist anymore, so I don’t know what hardware to get today, but yes absolutely. -Adam From: AF <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > On Behalf Of TJ Trout Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2024 11:25 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] troubleshooting telco pairs I think you can make a virtual pots line using an FXO and FXS adapters over ip On Wed, Jun 5, 2024, 7:58 AM <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: You can kinda sniff along the wire. I would tie the pairs together at the far end and put the tone on it. But the age old method is to cut it in the middle and see which direction the fault lies. Ground each wire at the far end in sequence and identify the problem wire. Keep cutting the bad half. Binary chopping. You might be able to put tone on one wire to ground and sniff, or open the jacked at a mid point etc. Find someone with an old fashioned copper TDR. Do you only have 2 wire available? Does it read open circuit or does it have some leakage, shorts or grounds? Best Regards, Chuck McCown McCown Technology Corporation 8401 N Commerce Dr Lake Point, Utah 84074 801-250-9503 Office 435-830-4306 Cell www.mccowntech.com <http://www.mccowntech.com> www.microtrench.pro <http://www.microtrench.pro> www.terabitnetworks.com <http://www.terabitnetworks.com> From: Ken Hohhof Sent: Wednesday, June 5, 2024 8:44 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' Subject: Re: [AFMUG] troubleshooting telco pairs Oddly, the customer’s IT guy does have Ethernet connectivity to the barns via wireless bridges. But they want their barn controllers to also dial a list of phone numbers using the FAX line in the office. Either I’m doing something stupid, or the wire’s broken in which case it wasn’t working over the POTS line either. Farms can be very old school. Don’t want eFAX. Don’t want voicemail sent to email, they still use *97. Don’t want IVRs or autoattendants or dial by name directory. Don’t want computer-phone integration or softphones. And yet the owner’s son drives a Tesla. If it’s really a broken wire, then it’s their problem to get it fixed, I just usually start from the assumption that it was working when I got there and I’m doing something stupid. From: AF <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > On Behalf Of Daniel White Sent: Wednesday, June 5, 2024 9:27 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] troubleshooting telco pairs Can you just eliminate the wire and do a wireless PtP between the two locations? Even if you find the issue with the wire, if it is that convoluted, it sounds like an ongoing problem potentially. <https://atheral.com/> Daniel White Co-Founder phone: +1 (702) 470-2770 direct: +1 (702) 470-2766 Ken Hohhof June 5, 2024 at 1:24 AM Anybody remember your POTS troubleshooting skills? I’m trying to get an alarm system to work from a VoIP ATA over about 1000 feet of convoluted wiring at a farm, a combination of overhead and buried. I get tone on my tone tracer (Tempo brand) but 0 VDC on a buttset or voltmeter. It’s too far for my Fluke cable tester which is meant for data cables. I suspect one wire in the pair is open, but I don’t know how to check this with just a tone tracer. The alarm system just calls and plays a recorded voice announcement, so the VoIP part shouldn’t be tricky at all, not like FAX machines or alarms that use modems. But it can’t even seize the line and call out. _____ -- AF mailing list [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com _____ -- AF mailing list [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
-- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
