Other phones in the house don't ring

[nestman]

I setup magic jack to use the existing wiring in my home. Now I am able to make calls using the other phones. However, when an incoming call arrives, the other phones do not ring. Anyone know why?

Thanks.

[callontom]

First, make sure the supply wire from your phone company is disconnected. It may be your USB doesn't have enough power to ring all phones. In that case you'll need a powered USB hub, or cordless phones that have their own power.

[Matt9876]

Even with USB power hub MJ won't ring too many phones,older phones cause problems.

Test one at a time and add one phone to each test,I have one desk phone with electronic ringer and three self powered cordless phones working now off house wires.

[feglo]

I'm in the same situation.

3 phone set up

1 corded phone which is the home base with Answering machine and all

2 cordless ones with wired base as chargers

None of them ring, calls come in and their LCDs light up, I can asnwer, hear, talk, and call.

But no ringing....

[Popgory]

I'm in the same situation.

3 phone set up ...

None of them ring, calls come in and their LCDs light up, I can asnwer, hear, talk, and call.

But no ringing....

Welcome to the forum feglo!

Knowing the brand and model will help us. Try searching your brand and see if any posts about them. I recall reading several post about handset compatibility so you may find some info B/4 other members post.

[KA7HQP]

A typical Landline telephone network sends between 60 to 90 Volts AC to ring the bells on a typical telephone. Since the MagicJack is powered from the USB port of a computer, it is very unlikely that it would output anything near those levels. There is also a limitation referred to the Ringer Equivalancy (Typically 3-5 maximum in a Landline telephone network and should be listed on all phones), and again expect the MagicJack to supply less.

The MagicJack would be best used with telephones with pizeo (electronic ) style ringers as their requirement for ringing voltage and current is much less and works well.

My experiance with telephones with bells is that there is not enough power for the clapper to hit the bells with MagicJack and will require modification to the bell assembly as changing the distance between the clapper and bells should work. I would hesitate to use multiple phones with actual Bells as the current draw may exceed the MagicJack. Pizeo ringers should work fine even with multiple phones.

Dennis

[nestman]

Has anyone made a signal booster that could be plugged in? Wouldn't this supply the needed voltage for the phones to ring?

Thanks.

[maine-iac]

The cost of a signal booster vs a cheap phone with electronic ringer?

I go for the cheap phone.

[sabresfan]

Just for fun today I plugged my MJ line into my phone jack in the living to see if my other jacks throughout the house would work and to my surprise they all work great. I unplugged the line to pots at the box on the side of my house just to make sure there were no problems. I'm using a pair of vtech cordless phones and a GE cordless phone with an answering machine and all are working fine. I also have a brother mfc8500 fax printer combo hooked up as well.

[ThisIsMyUserName]

Had this issue with a set of V-Tech brand cordless phones, then switched to Panasonic brand and the problem went away.