Last weekend a really clued-up engineer came to visit me regarding the aforementioned
long-standing sequence of faults on lines 2 and 4.
See:
https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,24614.msg426258.html#msg426258.
Just before he left, he fitted a MkIV SSFP instead of the plain ‘telephony’ front that I had before. He also plugged in a nasty DSL lead into my modem because the SSFP has the usual RJ45 socket in it for DSL and in the existing set-up I had a
BT-plug-to-RJ11 custom cable plugged into my modem, and this would not fit into the SSFP. I had no need for an SSFP and he must have been confused.
Anyway, he swapped out my cable and the plain plain ‘telephony’ front that I had before. A week went by and I asked janet to unplug the MkIV SSFP and put things back the way before, because I didn’t need an SSFP, didn’t like the poor quality cable and it was also too long. The moment the swap-over had been completed - shock my downstream speed dropped by 250k which was very suspicious. Closer investigation revealed- horror!
The hollow SNR-vs-tones fault had returned !So it seems we have a partial answer: either the blank BT-socket telephony
front plate has been burned by the lightning strike of last February, or else my BT-plug-to-RJ11 cable has.
So I need to replace both, and likewise on the other lines too.
Looking at the top of the line 4 NTE, it reads ‘Master Socket 5C’; I didn’t realise I had an NTE5C on that line. The engineer did not swap out the NTE5 while he was here last week; it was done some while ago and I have forgotten. I know because the NTE5 right now post visit has Janet’s label on it saying ‘line 4’ on the top surface, that is on the back part not the SSFP or other removable front part, so that proves it’s the old NTE5 still present.
When AA staff did their customary initial check procedure, they got me to swap
modems over to
check for faulty modems, which I did, and thus ruled out a bad modem. This did not however rule out the faceplate front or modem-to-faceplate cable, but what can possibly go wrong with that, so who needs to be concerned? AA was also being considerate because I cannot swap kit over in these sort of tests on my own without assistance from my wife, so AA’s kind understanding plus trust in my being clueful (sometimes) means that AA staff do not pester me with checks every time, but rather just trust me. Normally users have NTE-front-lower-halves that are removed in order to get access to the test socket and these are temporarily removed in order to rule out duff filters and also disconnect all extension wiring. So anyway, who would swap out a plain straight-through front-plate as in my case?
BT engineers always remove the front lower half and go straight into the test socket so that explains why they cannot see the problems.
I really need to have all the NTE5s replaced if they have not already been checked ?
—
Any thoughts?
I can’t see without a magnifying lens and a bright light, but I’m wondering if some darkening is visible on the connectors.
In the following image below, line 4 is on the left, line 2 on the right: