Strange Phone Problem

[snowy2004]

Hi all,

Wondered if anyone has any idea about the following :

I live in Spain and use Tivo with a Sky box. I have just moved to the mainland from Mallorca. In Mallorca Tivo worked just fine - it dialled home every night via a Spain POP number.

Now I am on the mainland the situation is different. I have a standard POTS line (with ADSL). When Tivo dials it just says "Failed - Can't Connect" - I have plugged both Tivo and a phone into a double adaptor (ADSL disconnected) and listened in on the the phone whilst Tivo dials - lo and behold it connects!!! After much experimentation it would appear that Tivo will only make the connection if the telephone is off the hook. I listened to the screeching of the modem throughout the entire daily call and it worked perfectly. If you replace the receiver during the call then Tivo fails its call!

Any ideas much appreciated!
Si.

[frogster]

Remove all your filters and the router. Does the call still fail? If not you probably have a duff filter somewhere. Try swapping them around.

[Ashley]

You have a fault called 'High Open'

See http://www.broadbandreports.com/faq/11821

[frogster]

No. That article describes a syncro problem (American to boot). He has no problem with his synchro.

[Ashley]

How about this then.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/askjack/2007/03/broadband_woes_a_case_of_high.html

I know it's not Spain but I think it's his problem.

[snowy2004]

Hi all - thanks for the advice. My DSL router is working just fine. Get regular torrent downloads at 300k plus. Browsing is incredibly quick and the router web interface is not reporting problems... However : Getting this installation done was very tricky to start with. I live in an apartment on the third floor. The Telefonica engineer spent three days trying to get my ADSL to work - no sync! When we tested in the comms room in the basement it worked just fine but wouldnt in my apartment. We discovered a new cable going all the way from the wiring cupboard on the landing of my floor right down to the comms room in the basement. Someone else had obviously had a similar problem and had run their own cable rather than using the existing ones. Fortunately it was 6 core and only 2 were being used - we hooked into it at either end.

We then connected this wire to the pre-existing wiring from the cupboard to my apartment. It worked! The original wiring in the building was VERY low grade and VERY oxidised. It could be the wiring from the cupboard to my apartment.

My phone quality is great though, no crackles or static (mind you I mainly use VOIP rather than the landline). My ADSL is running just fine. The telephone company are not responsible for the wiring inside my building and the logisitics of replacing that last bit of wiring are impossible due to an awkward building president that won't allow the communal keys out of his reach without an argument!

Is there anything I can do to allow Tivo to call?

[frogster]

How about this then.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/askjack/2007/03/broadband_woes_a_case_of_high.html

I know it's not Spain but I think it's his problem.No, that article also describes the same synchro problem.

He doesn't have a synchro problem at all. He has the opposite problem.

[frogster]

Is there anything I can do to allow Tivo to call?I will bet a modest sum that you have a filter problem, as I said.

Are you aware that you need filters on ALL used phone sockets, unless you have a master filter? This isn't just to make the ADSL work, it is also to stop interference on phones and POTS modems.

Remove all your filters, and disconnect the router. See if Tivo will connect. If it will (and it should) then start putting the filters back in, one by one, until Tivo no longer connects. At that point you will have found the fault.

If Tivo won't connect even with all the filters and router removed then you have some other problem.

[Pete77]

snowy2004 I recall that when you were last in contact with us you were telling us about the strange redistributed communal single satellite dish system in your block sending out some major satellite channels over the UHF coax cable on Ch 21 to 69 and were debating whether you needed or indeed could have your own satellite dish at the new place.

Can you tell us what happened on that in the end? Did you manage to erect your own satellite dish?

Also why did you leave Mallorca in favour of the mainland? Depending which part of the mainland on the whole my view would be that Mallorca is the nicer place. Of course I would make an exception when it comes to Magalluf or the equally horrible Calas de Mallorca but then the mainland Costas has many similar such places.

[snowy2004]

Hi Frogster,

I only have one phone socket in use. It was tested on this socket but without a filter (assumed I didn't need one as the router was disconnected). Simply put : Phone socket, Double Adaptor, Telephone in one and Tivo in the other. No filters at all. Tivo won't connect unless I have the other telephone off hook!

Hi Pete77,

I have put my own dish up! Got fed up with not being able to use Tivo!! Also got fed up of the terrible community broadband and had ADSL installed!

I left Mallorca for many reasons, one was "island fever". It is a relatively small place and unless you live near Palma it is difficult to purchase anything more specialist than a block of cheese. A visit to PC-World (PC-City in Spain) was a 3 hour round trip without time spent in the store - same for a new set of tyres! Also in Winter the majority of the island closes for 5 months - so boring! Don't get me wrong, there are some horrible places here on the Costa Del Sol but there are lots of nice ones as well. You only have to go ten minutes out of the egg+chips tourist areas to find beautiful countryside and unspoilt villages. All in all, many factors contribute but another main one is that a combined Iceland & Waitrose store has just opened here (a genuine one) :-) We ex-pats still need a little reminder of home ya know!!!

Seriously, I am only 37 - When I eventually retire then Mallorca would be a lovely place but at the moment I wan't more action.

By the way Pete77, I see you are from Macc - I'm from Stalybridge so not far really!

[Pete77]

I left Mallorca for many reasons, one was "island fever". It is a relatively small place and unless you live near Palma it is difficult to purchase anything more specialist than a block of cheese. A visit to PC-World (PC-City in Spain) was a 3 hour round trip without time spent in the store - same for a new set of tyres! Also in Winter the majority of the island closes for 5 months - so boring! Don't get me wrong, there are some horrible places here on the Costa Del Sol but there are lots of nice ones as well. You only have to go ten minutes out of the egg+chips tourist areas to find beautiful countryside and unspoilt villages. All in all, many factors contribute but another main one is that a combined Iceland & Waitrose store has just opened here (a genuine one) :-) We ex-pats still need a little reminder of home ya know!!!

Seriously, I am only 37 - When I eventually retire then Mallorca would be a lovely place but at the moment I wan't more action.

I don't know where you were in Mallorca in relation to Palma. Our family apartment place in Canyamel is 80km and an hour away. However by this summer they will have completed the new high spec divided dual carriageway (that was two thirds completed last year) all the way to Manacor so for a speedy driver like me inclined to do about 130km+ on the dual carriageway (they never heard of the GATSO fortunately) that takes the Palma journey down to 40 to 45 minutes and the airport down to about the same.

You have to be careful about small islands like the very little Greek ones with only 2,000 people because then everyone knows who you are and all your business in no time (its bad enough like that in the village I live in). It did seem odd that Palma has the couple of nice Carrefours (formerly Continente) but all you get in the rest of the island is Caprabo or whatever Syp and Consumer has now become (Eroski?). And now they are opening Lidls everywhere on the island, which are truly horrible, but still no Carrefours outside Palma. Surely Manacor and Inca could both support a Carrefour. Where were you exactly. I keep thinking of dropping out of the rat race one day but there seem to be too many Brits for my my liking on the Costa Del Sol. Crete seems very interesting as there is still dirt cheap property in beautiful out of the way places and yet Heraklion is as big or bigger than Palma and as historic. It can't be long before Ryanair or Easyjet start a daily flight to Heraklion on top of the summer charter flights unless the global warming maniacs win the day. Still Greek would be a bugger to learn as a language, whereas my French and Spanish are both pretty reasonable.

What kind of work do you do that lets you stay out there in Spain.