[sci.electronics] telephone line: which rings?

reyy@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (05/08/91)

Greetings:

I need some information.  I want to build a device
that responds to a telephone ring.  Can anyone 
tell me, or point me to some good lit., as to 
which one of those wires in the telehpone cable
corresponds to the ringer, and at what voltage
does it appear?  Anything I should know about
when i tap into that line?  (I'm quite an
amateur at this stuff, so complete explanations
are the best.  Also, responses via Email will
prpbably be best.)

Thanks,
David S. Rowell
REYY@Vax5.cit.cornell.edu (internet)
.sig available upon request

grayt@Software.Mitel.COM (Tom Gray) (05/09/91)

In article <1991May7.211057.4572@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> reyy@vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:
>Greetings:
>
>I need some information.  I want to build a device
>that responds to a telephone ring.  Can anyone 
>tell me, or point me to some good lit., as to 
>which one of those wires in the telehpone cable
>corresponds to the ringer, and at what voltage
>does it appear?  Anything I should know about
>when i tap into that line?  (I'm quite an
>amateur at this stuff, so complete explanations
>are the best.  Also, responses via Email will
>prpbably be best.)
>

There are two wires in the loop - tip and ring.
The tip is the green wire and is grounded 
though a resistance at the CO. The ring is the
red wire and is connected to the ringing current
generator at the CO.

There is a telephone maxim that

RED IS RING IS RIGHT.

The red lead is the ring which is punched down
to the right of the green lead (tip). This 
is all you need to know to install a telephone
switch.

As you know, the telephone loop is balanced.
You must ensure that your circuit does not 
imbalance the loop. The differential resistance
of your device must exceed 10K and better yet
30K ohms or there will be significant noise
due to longitudinal currents.

grayt@Software.Mitel.COM (Tom Gray) (05/09/91)

In article <1991May7.211057.4572@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> you write:
>Greetings:
>
>I need some information.  I want to build a device
>that responds to a telephone ring.  Can anyone 
>tell me, or point me to some good lit., as to 
>which one of those wires in the telehpone cable
>corresponds to the ringer, and at what voltage
>does it appear?  Anything I should know about
>when i tap into that line?  (I'm quite an
>amateur at this stuff, so complete explanations
>are the best.  Also, responses via Email will
>prpbably be best.)
>
>Thanks,
>David S. Rowell
>REYY@Vax5.cit.cornell.edu (internet)
>.sig available upon request


I forgot to put this in the original reply.

AT THE CO. The tip is grounded. The ring has a
nominal -48V (-41 to -56) supply attached to it.
During ringing, the ring voltage of -48V has
an additional AC voltage of 86v RMS superimposed
on it.

However your telephone is on the end of a long
cable. This cable may havei a resistance from
about 200 to 2000ohms. The voltage received at the
end of the loop will vary greatly. For this
reason most telephony circuits are designed to
detect not voltage but current.

A standard ringing detector is a differential 
current detector connected to a RC network
with a time constant longer than the 50ms
of the 20Hz ringing current.

What application is this for? Is it in line
with a telephone as an indicator or is it
part of a bigger circuit. If you wish to
terminate a telephone loop on some device,
you can buy fully functional loop start
trunk circuits from many manufacturers.
This will provide you with ringing detection
and all audio functions for a very nominal
price (~10 to 20 dollars in unit quantities).