depolo@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Jeff DePolo) (09/11/90)
I've been receiving a periodic call on my home phone. It happens about every five minutes and is always the same thing. It's a periodic tone, single frequency, and repeats for about 20 seconds before the ine disconnects. By ear, it's about 500 Hz, 500 ms on, 1.5 seconds off. It doesn't sound like any modem I've ever heard before. I was thinking maybe FAX, but I've never listened to the start of a FAX transmission, so I don't know. Based on its periodic behavior and it's frequent recalling, it must be computer-originated, but I can't find out for sure. I've tried *69 for return calling, but I get Bell of PA's recording saying that it's out of my calling area. Bell of PA's Annoyance Calling Department just told me to leave the phone off the hook and if it keeps up for more than a day to call them back. Some help, but I can see their reasoning. Any ideas of what it is? I'm more curious than annoyed. Jeff DePolo N3HBZ Twisted Pair: (215) 386-7199 depolo@eniac.seas.upenn.edu RF: 146.685- 442.70+ 144.455s (Philadelphia) University of Pennsylvania Carrier Pigeon: 420 S. 42nd St. Phila PA 19104
wkemmerer@sugar.hackercorp.com (Walter Kemmerer) (09/20/90)
Jeff, there sure seems to be a lot of us with this problem these days! I just completed surviving a round of these kind of calls on a four to five minute interval for about eight hours. Like you, it seemed to be a comm device at the other end, but it sure didn't like my modem and Procomm. The local telephone company (go for a supervisor to get something done) was quite nice about all this, and put a trap on the line to track down the call. It was coming from another local telephone company, and they got together and managed to contact the owner of the originating number. They didn't know what could be causing it, but when the other telephone company cut the service off at that number, the calls disappeared! This fixed it for that day, but darn if it didn't come back the next day at noon! Went through the rounds again (this was a Saturday), and the local telehone company actually contacted the supervisor I had been working with at home. He in turn contacted the other telephone company office and just happened to catch the same technician that he had worked with the previous day. They went after it again, and this time isolated the problem; seems the customer at the other telephone company had a home burgular alarm that had been fried in a storm that came through the night that the phone calls first started. So it had been calling (my home number) for assistance... What bothers me about the problem is that if I wasn't a lurker here, I wouldn't have known what to ask to get the darned problem to go away! What bothers me even more is that the folks at the point of origination never noticed that their alarm system was dead! Good luck ... the first folks I talked to just told me to take the telephone off hook, too! Walt Kemmerer Sugar Land, TX wkemmerer@sugar.hackercorp.com 72737.563@compuserve.com