best land line phone to connect to my fax machine?

annie42

Hi - at present I have a Motorola land line phone which is connected to my fax machine. The phones need replacing and I have tried connecting a BT Freelance phone in exactly the same way as the Motorola one is connected but calls are ringing only to the fax machine. I can buy another Motorola set online but would prefer to buy from a local store in case I need to return it. Does anyone use the same system of connecting their fax to their land line and can recommend a make of phone that will do the job. Many thanks.

Myser

What is the make and model of the fax machine?

There is probably a setting to enable calls to be sent to the external phones.

Alternatively, just buy a phone splitter and plug both the fax and the phones into the telephone socket.

annie42

Hi - It's an Epson Office BX300F. The Motorola phone is working fine so I don't understand why the new one wont. I have a cable with a jack on each end. One is plugged into the Epson and one into the phone. I connected the BT phone in exactly the same way but it rings straight through to the fax .

Myser

It seems that this could be down to the ringer settings on your BT phone.

Disconnect the Epson fax machine and try ringing your land-line from another telephone.

annie42

Ok thanks will try that and report back.

Myser

If it turns out not to be the ringer on the BT phone, you may need to adjust the Rings to Answer setting on the fax machine. Have a look at page 18 of this manual:

ftp://download.epson-europe.com/pub/download/3217/epson321754eu.pdf

The default setting is 4. This may be set lower for your machine.

annie42

Epson is set to let the phone ring five times before the fax cuts in.

I switched off the Epson and plugged in the BT phone on it's own. I rang it and got the ringing tone but the phone didn't ring. There's not much charge in the batteries as I tried setting it up last weekend and abandoned it so the batteries will have run down. Maybe I should leave it to charge a bit longer and try again?

We have a separate land line in the house. Will plug into that and see what happens.

Myser

Most cordless phone systems have the option of enabling the ring tone on the handset, base-unit or both.

If you enable it on the base unit, it should still work even if the batteries in the handset are drained.

annie42

Will look at that however I'm wondering if the phone is faulty as I've connected it up to my husbands land line and when I dial his number it says the phone number isn't recognized. The mystery deepens!

Myser

annie42 wrote: »

when I dial his number it says the phone number isn't recognized.

Is the number withheld on the phone you are calling from? Try using a mobile.

Has the cordless phone system been unplugged and left for a few minutes?

Have you tried resetting it.

If you think the cordless phone system is faulty, try plugging a normal corded phone into the fax machine.

annie42

Please ignore my last post. The phone does work on my husbands line. Have plugged it back into mine with Epson still switched off. Have realized there is a phone splitter fitted although have never plugged an additional jack into it. The lead from it was connected to the Epson so I've disconnected that too but the phone will still not work. I can't seem to unplug the splitter - it won't budge.