I cannot get my American Telecom home phone to work right. It won't dial.?

Question

I just got an American Telecom phone (RA2184BB) at a garage sale. I charged one of the 2 handsets, and hooked the base to power and my phoneline. I press the the talk button, hear a dial tone, and dial #'s. But even though I hear the numbers dial, I keep hearing the dial tone. And if I dial with a different phone and try to talk using these, the sound is very poor, choppy, and impossible to understand (I hear OK, but the other person can't at all really). How do I fix this? (and Yes, I tried both handsets.)

Answer 1

sounds like the reason why it was being sold at the garage sale... I would connect my test set to determine if the DMTF tones are being properly sent... but since you do not have that option, try switching the phone from tone to pulse and see if you can dial out...

how you can check if the DMTF tones are working properly...

if you have a pager (probably not, since it is no longer 1994) or a cell phone that allows you to leave numeric messages (yes some cell phone voice mails still have this option) use a working phone to dial that cell/pager then pick up the "new" used phone and dial 1234567890# (hitting the * key will probably get you to the password prompt for the VM so check that on a subsequent call

Answer 2

check the polarity of tip and ring. If T/R are reversed, older phones without polarity guard will not break dial tone.

The bad handset can be "fixed" by taking the transmiter element and tapping against a hard surface to free up the carbon granules.