The Dock-N-Talk got installed yesterday after three days trying to correct a problem with the telephone wiring in our home. Now that it is working, I am very impressed with the device. But, in this post let me explain about the wiring glitch that held up installation of the gadget.
I opened the small box containing the Dock-N-Talk on Monday. The package contained the small unit, 9-volt power supply, short and long modular telephone line cords, Quick Start Guide, Warranty Mailer, and a small User’s Guide. There was also a custom docking cable designed to work with my Sony Ericsson T610 wireless phone. Total cost including Sales Tax was $162.97.
Installation for most users is very simple. Place the Dock-N-Talk at a location where you get excellent wireless reception with your cellphone. Plug the power supply into a standard 120 volt wall outlet and insert the power connector into the back of the Dock-N-Talk unit. The LED on the unit will begin flashing green. Set the slide switch on the back of the Dock-N-Talk to line pair 2 (LP2). Plug a line cord into a modular wall jack and the other end into either of the ports on the back of the Dock-N-Talk unit. The LED should continue to blink green (in my case it turned a solid red). If you have an operating landline and want to use both the landline and cellphone via a landline handset near the Dock-N-Talk, use the other supplied line cord to plug a 2-line telephone into the other port on the back of the gadget. Use the custom docking cable to connect the Dock-N-Talk with your cellphone and you have a successful installation. That’s it. You’re done. Now you can play with your new toy and see for yourself how effective the Dock-N-Talk is at doing its thing with any 2-line extension phone in your home or office.
In my case I was not able to get a green flashing LED when I inserted the line cord into the back of the Dock-N-Talk. The User’s Guide explains that if the LED is red at this stage of installation, it indicates that wireline service is present on line 2. The solution is to disconnect line 2 from the network interface box. The problem was that we do not have service on line 2; we canceled the service for line 2 about 4 years ago when we moved from an analog fax machine to a digital online fax service. Nevertheless, the LED was red.
I called PhoneLabs and did a little troubleshooting with a technician. We determined that the problem must stem from a cross wired condition somewhere in the telephone wiring of our home; probably in a modular wall jack.
There is a technical school a few blocks from our home. I called there the next day and hooked up with a couple of students about to graduate. They came over following classes that afternoon and we looked for the crossed wire. We looked for three hours, but nothing was discovered that solved the problem.
A friend knew someone who knew someone who had retired after 30 years as a master technician at SBC. I reached Paul the next day and asked if he would come over and help to resolve the puzzle. He arrived a few hours later. He walked in, attached two or three gadgets to the wires behind one of our modular wall jacks and explained the source of the problem to me.
There was power on line 2--no dial tone, but power. He figured the Dock-N-Talk saw the power and interpreted it as telephone service. There was no telephone service on the line, so Paul figured it had to be one of three things.
He noticed that we had a security system installed in our home (it was here when we moved in and we have never used it). He thought it might be using line 2. He also remembered that the lobby attendant had opened the entrance door for him using a remote switch. He asked if we could open the entrance door from our suite, and yes, we can. It may be that the system piggybacks on line 2 to enable this function. And finally, he said that many years ago the phone companies would install a small transformer on phone lines in order to power the light on bedroom princess phones. Maybe there was an old transformer providing a small amount of power to line 2.
The solution was simple. He removed the line 2 wire pair from the modular jack and replaced them with two other wires that had no power. He did this on the other modular jacks throughout our home. Within 45 minutes of his arrival Paul left after having implemented the fix and played with the Dock-N-Talk for awhile. He wants one, too.
So far, the Dock-N-Talk is working great. I’ll share more soon.
