Newsgroup: comp.dcom.telecom

I recently tried to connect a Pacific Bell wireless phone bought in
Britain on a two wire socket on another European country.  To do this
I removed the British modular socket and connected the two outer
cables to the continental socket.  This got me dialtone and the
ability to dial.  Unfortunately the phone refused to ring.  I removed
all other phones from the circuit thinking that the problem was a high
REN, but it still wouldn't ring.  I tried all the other cable
combinations to no avail.  

I also tried to connect some of the cables together, but that also
didn't work.  When I opened the phone I found that the two middle
cables were indeed connected somewhere, so they were of some use.
This made me try to connect a 5.6K resistor between one of the middle
and one of the out cables and this convinced the telephone to start
ringing.  It also made it refuse dialing.  

One more attempt was to connect it to another phone line.  That fixed
the problem, but it was not the line I want to have the phone
connected to.  The only difference between the two lines is that the
first one supports a third line ! via a frequency modulation scheme
installed by the phone company.  At the point where the line enters
the house it passes though a band pass filter and at some other point
a mains supplied box creates the third line.

When I returned to Britain I opened a modular socket and found that
there were THREE wires coming into it.  It also included some
circuitry (some of it sealed) which must be doing something useful.
(Could it be ring supression for parellel connected phones?  When I
dial from the one the other doesn't churn.)

My question is:

How can I connect a British four wire socket to a continental two wire
plug?  What circuit is needed?  I would also appreciate if someone
could enlighten me as to the uses of the other wires.

(For American readers:  British modular sockets are physically not the
same as the American ones. )

I have already posted this with UK distribution is sci.electronics, but
I didn't get an answer for anyone in Britain, so if anyone on the other
side of the pond knows something, please reply.

Many thanks,


Diomidis Spinellis                  Internet:                 dds@cc.ic.ac.uk
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