Lou@cup.portal.com (William Joseph Marriott) (09/10/89)
I have a problem that's cropped up only recently. When I dial, there is a small pause after the modem completes its dialing sequence and before it actually connects with the other computer. In that pause, I hear music, news, weather reports, etc. coming out of the modem's speaker. Apparently this stuff is from a radio station (as opposed to aliens or KGB agents). Other folks have heard this, so psychiatric treatment will not solve the problem. ANyone have this happen to them? Why do you think my modem is picking up this music? How can I correct the problem? Changing the wiring configuration does not work; everything but the phone wire itself is shielded.
barry@primerd.prime.com (09/11/89)
I had a similar problem about 15 years ago when I had a model 37
teletype installed at home in a finished basement. The 37 had a builtin
phone with an external speaker. The radio interference was so loud at
first that I could plainly hear the radio station (not one to which I
would have listened) at the other end of the house. The problem was
severely diminished, but not totally eliminated, when the phone company
put a filter on the line. With the filter in place, I could hear the
radio station when I turned up the volume on the speaker, but not when
the speaker was set at its lowest setting.
I suggest you report your problem to your local phone company. As I
recall, the filter cost me nothing. By the way, how close are you to
the transmitter(s) in question?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Barry Wolman | barry@s66.prime.com
Principal Technical Consultant | 492 Old Connecticut Path
Prime Computer | Framingham, MA 01701
| 508/626-1700, ext. 4187
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Nothing in this posting reflects an official position of Prime Computer.ar4@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Piper Keairnes) (09/11/89)
In response to the person receiving radio broadcasting on his modem... I have had the same problem with noisy telephone lines. The lines were clear until some contractors dug a ditch in front of my house one sunny afternoon. In that ditch was what remained of my street's phone lines. They decided to patch it themselves and save the cost of paying the telephone company to repair the wiring. They were apparently unsuccessful in patching the wiring because from that day on, we received a very strong broadcast signal from WLW and Voice of America (both less than 5 miles away). The noise you are receiving is most likely the result of the unshielded wiring or a poor patch job. Best cure: ATM0 (modem command to turn the speaker off on a Hayes compatible) -- Piper Keairnes
mm5l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Matthew Mashyna) (09/12/89)
Lou@cup.portal.com writes: >I have a problem that's cropped up only recently. >When I dial, there is a small pause after the modem completes >its dialing sequence and before it actually connects with the other >computer. In that pause, I hear music, news, weather reports, etc. >coming out of the modem's speaker. Apparently this stuff is from >a radio station (as opposed to aliens or KGB agents). Is the phone in an area with a multi-line connection ? I had a modem on a five line phone that would play what every radio station the hold button would force on waiting customers. It was a bit muted, though. I figured it for poor shielding in the main phone box. Matt "have you heard the voices?" Mashyna Macintosh Initiative H&SS Dean's Office Carnegie Mellon
dave@PRC.Unisys.COM (David Lee Matuszek) (09/14/89)
In article <22020@cup.portal.com> Lou@cup.portal.com (William Joseph Marriott) writes: >I have a problem that's cropped up only recently. > >When I dial, there is a small pause after the modem completes >its dialing sequence and before it actually connects with the other >computer. In that pause, I hear music, news, weather reports, etc. >coming out of the modem's speaker. Apparently this stuff is from >a radio station (as opposed to aliens or KGB agents). I had this problem once. I lived about a mile from a powerful rock music station in Knoxville, Tennessee. The station was strong enough that sometimes I could hear it very faintly on my stereo record player, with the record player not even plugged in! (No, I don't believe in magic; I believe it was the piezoelectric crystal in the needle responding to currents induced in the wiring.) You didn't say whether you could use the modem. I got so many errors I could seldom even log in, and even when I could, the line quality was so poor it wasn't worth the effort. We're talking really, really unusable here. I called Ma Bell (as I recall, this was when the grand old lady still lived). At that time, and probably still, the phone company tried to give you good speech lines, but if you had computer problems that was your tough luck. Fortunately, I could (sometimes) hear the music on my telephone, so I had a case for getting a telephone person out to the house. Doubly fortunately, I got a competent young guy who took an interest in my real problem, and spend half a day working on it. There are filters that the phone company can put on your line to screen out the radio station; he did so, and they didn't work. Then there are real, industrial-strength filters that the phone company has but doesn't want to give you (or even let you know they exist); he used one that finally got one phone jack in my house useable. After that, the modem for my Apple II+ worked great, and an acoustic modem I used with a VDT worked pretty well most of the time, provided I used that one wall jack. -- dave P.S. Psychiatry seldom solves anything. Lobotomy, now.... -- Dave Matuszek (dave@prc.unisys.com) -- Unisys Corp. / Paoli Research Center / PO Box 517 / Paoli PA 19301 -- Any resemblance between my opinions and those of my employer is improbable. * 20th anniversary? Yeah, but it's 17 years since the LAST man on the moon! *