Faulty brother fax machine or bt line

mikeopvc

Just got off the phone to a BT rep who said as they can't find any fault with my line it may be down to bad filters causing my faxes to fail, I will buy two new filters but just wanted to ask if there are any good quality filters available or are they all just the same?

macman

If you've got crackling then there is a line fault, assuming you are testing from the BT test socket and not using a cordless phone. Have you tried the BT quiet test?

Connect a good telephone into your master socket and dial 17070.
At the time of writing you hear a female pre-recorded voice say:

This circuit is defined as 01234 123123.
BT line test facilities.
Please press 1 for ring back, 2 for quiet line, 3 for fast test, 4 for fast cleanse or clear down.
[message repeats 3 times]

Select option 2 (quiet line) and listen to what you hear. You should hear perfect silence on the line - there should be no pops, clicks, whistles, buzzing and the like. If you do not hear silence first check it isn’t the phone you are using, wiggle the cable a bit to see if that affects it, if not then you know you have a problem with your line to the BT exchange. Any problems with ADSL connectivity (low speed, connections always dropping, etc) are likely caused by this.
Do the line test with everything else disconnected, eg the fax machine.
Certainly worth swapping out the filters in turn to see if this makes a difference.