if people say they are trying to call you on your normal fixed line telephone and the phone “answers” after one ring and they hear a nasty crackling noise, it could be that your ADSL filter has gone kaputt..
happened to me a few days ago… the components in the filter had failed – I noticed that my phone was not ringing properly (due to reduced ringing voltage) – whatever conditions the filter presented to the line were being treated as a “seize” (i.e picking up the phone) after one ring..
Luckily I have about 6 or more spares in the house so it was a 5 minute job to fix after I worked out what was going on but it had be confused for a bit..
The offending filter is now on my desk.
I am going to perform some “scientific investigation work” on it with the help of a a large hammer and a big screwdriver later – I’m curious as to what is actually in the thing and I want some of the bits out of it (such as the lead with the BT plug) for other purposes.
