Inhibiting the phone from ringing

Thread Starter

Bluebirdiran

Joined Feb 5, 2010
62
Hello to all the experts out there!
I have this telephone number that is similar to an ISP company's except for one digit. This number is sometimes wrongly dialed by the public who want to login to this company through dial up. This happens very often during the night when I am asleep. You can imagine how annoying that can be.

Can anyone help me to build some kind of a device that can inhibit the phone sets from ringing at specified time intervals. I cannot unplug the phone sets from the wall, firstly because there is more than 3 upstairs and downstairs and secondly, I will definitely forget to plug them back in again in the morning. I speak from experience here.
This device should to be able to do its job just by plugging it into any empty tel. socket anywhere in the house. It does not matter if it has to include a Microprocessor and programming. Anything is better than getting wakened in the middle of the night!!

Thanks to everyone,
Bluebird
 

Thread Starter

Bluebirdiran

Joined Feb 5, 2010
62
Hi retched,

It is a good idea to start with. But I would like to have a configurable device where I can tell it to inhibit all incoming calls between say 12pm and 7am evrey night. I don't really want to do this manually every night since I am sure I will forget to "unset" it in the mornings. Any other ideas?
By the way if you leave the phone on an off hook state for too long the tel. company will disconnect the line.
Cheers Bluebird
 

Thread Starter

Bluebirdiran

Joined Feb 5, 2010
62
KMoffet, That means digging the wires out and making a mess.

ifixit, It is such a round number that I will not change it for the whole tel. company and I have been known by this number for a long time, so it is inconvinient to change it.
Lets have some more constructive ideas!! What I want is a device that you can plug into an empty socket and then do the adjustments and then you can unplug it if you expect an important call in the middle of the night! ( this happens to me sometimes)
Bluebird
 

Audioguru

Joined Dec 20, 2007
11,248
You need to disconnect all phones with a timer.

Shorting the telephone line will result in the telephone company sending out a repair man at your expense to fix the short that you cause if you simply short-circuit a telephone outlet.
 

ifixit

Joined Nov 20, 2008
652
A 1000uF/100V cap across the line would short out the ring signal, but not cause off hook. You'll have to experiment to be sure.
 

retched

Joined Dec 5, 2009
5,207
I used to take a phone off the hook all night. What would be required to do the same electronically? A relay and a resistor? Something different?
 

Audioguru

Joined Dec 20, 2007
11,248
I used to take a phone off the hook all night. What would be required to do the same electronically? A relay and a resistor? Something different?
A phone off hook for a few minutes without in a call causes the central office to create loud beeping on the phones then if the line remains off-hook the central office disconnects the line temporarily or permanently.
 

retched

Joined Dec 5, 2009
5,207
Yeah, bad idea.. If you needed 911 in the middle of the night, there is no saying how long you would have to hang the phone up before they reconnected your line before you could get a tone to make the call.
 

Heinz57

Joined Dec 16, 2009
24
What about a normal store brought wall socket timer? Just plug your phone into the timer and that into the wall socket? You can just not use the timer if you are expecting a call.

Just a thought
 

Audioguru

Joined Dec 20, 2007
11,248
My new wireless phone costed much less than the cost of the battery on the previous wireless phone and it came with the same but brand new battery. It costed nearly nothing (like a couple of coffees at a restaurant). It has a ringer on-off switch.

A wireless phone is not a cell phone.
 

retched

Joined Dec 5, 2009
5,207
I have an idea.

Use call forwarding to send your calls between the times you go to bed and wake up to "weather" or "time".

If you can get an autodialer, you could have It set your call forwarding at a specified time, and disable at the other specified time.

You could even write a simple program to have your PC's modem to make the call forwarding settings.
 

steveb

Joined Jul 3, 2008
2,436
A phone off hook for a few minutes without in a call causes the central office to create loud beeping on the phones then if the line remains off-hook the central office disconnects the line temporarily or permanently.
I seem to remember in the old days we would dial our own phone number. This would give a busy signal, but you could leave the phone off the hook for a long time that way. I can't say if this still works or not.
 

BillB3857

Joined Feb 28, 2009
2,570
I don't know about other phone systems, but our ATT service causes the house phone to ring one time during the "Call Forward" routine. The house phone can't be answered if forwarded, but still rings once for any incoming call.
 
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