Allan Adler said:
How do you know it is cross talk and not some other signal,
such as a radio station's talk show?
From the conversation going on it is going to be one personal
talk show!
A few years ago, I had a phone which seemed also to pick up a radio
station. It was so bad that when I tried to use it to dial up my ISP,
the computer said it couldn't find the dial tone. The problem was solved
by using a filter from Radio Shack. I only used the filter with the computer,
so I don't know whether it would have improved the sound quality if I had
used it with the phone.
The elderly friend of mine who kept telling me he had this problem,
and I kept dismissing it as just one more example of elderly
crankiness.. until I happened to drive the 40 miles to go see him,
tried to make a call and the conversation on the phone line was
louder than usual phone conversations! And that was after dialing
a single digit to just silence the dial tone. And his hearing/
tinnitus is worse than mine. No wonder he had complained.
Usually I consider it an act of desperation to buy anything from Radio Shack,
and it was certainly one in this case, but they actually had a solution when
no one else did.
Now a filter sounds like a possibility. Have you got more details
about what I'm supposed to look for? The last time I went in looking
for parts at Radio Shack the minute they realized I wasn't going
to make them a cell phone contract commission they went back to
talking among themselves.
And, I have an honest suggestion, for the folks who discussed
"certified" phones. Choose a phone supplier, you get to pick the
one that you think has the best chance. The next time you might
be there, ask the salesman if the phone is really "certified" and
see if they can tell you something to make you believe they actually
know what they are talking about. To be honest I would be REALLY
surprised if they know what you are talking about and even more
surprised if they can actually show anything that confirms this.
Please report back, I would love to hear what the outcome was.
Someone suggested the phone company would sell "certified" phones
and I should buy one of those. I honestly wouldn't think that Qwest
or Verizon even sells non-cell phones any more, I'll call them up
and tell them I want to buy one of the certified ones and see what
happens. But before I started this I did call and they offered to
come check the inside wiring ($50 plus hourly I think)
I worked for Tek decades ago and we had our own EMI cert lab, but
I never did any cert work. I wonder if they dumped that long ago,
along with the 80% of the workforce.
Thanks