721 causing phone line problems??

[pacman]

I did a search and could not find anything previously about an issue like this, so here it is... Lately we have had some phone line problems at our home. Randomly the phone would not work (people trying to call us would get a busy signal - when we picked up one of the phones, we would get nothing but dead air (no dialtone)). We had the phone company come out and check our line, all they could find was some corrosion on some of their connections, which they fixed. They told us it must be a problem in the home (most likely a short). So I went ahead and disconnected all but two phones and the 721. Still had the problem. Once I disconnected the phone line from 721, I was able to get our dialtone back. We also have DSL, and it continued to work, even when the phones did not...and yes, I have DSL blockers at each jack for the phones and 721. Now we experienced the problem again about a month later (with the 721 still disconnected from the phone line), so I got disconnected of one of the newer phones (dialtone immediately came back), so I thought maybe it wasn't the 721 causing the problem. Well, this morning before leaving for work, I reconnected the 721 to the phone line - and guess what. Not 2 hours later my wife calls me (using her cell phone) and tells me the phones are out again! Anyone else had this problem? It looks like the 721 is shorting out my phone system...

Pacman

 

[bradleys]

I don't have a 721, but I had the EXACT problem you describe with my 501.

I live on a boat, and in my case, the problem occurred after I had been in northern British Columbia Canada, in very humid weather. I've previously had problems with the smart card, in similar circumstances, but that was fixed by an in-and-out of the smart card.

Dish sent me a replacement 501. I have the $1.99 per month "extended warranty" or whatever it is called, and there were no problems getting them to do the exchange. They DID, however, ask me to try plugging the 501 into a different phone jack using a different cord, which I didn't think was unreasonable. As I recall, I didn't have the "extended warranty" at the time I called, but they let me sign up for it right then.

 

[baloo75]

My 721 was doing the same thing a while back with our phone line. The next thing that happened was it started to display a "not authorized to view this station" message on all stations. I'm not sure if the two were related but thought I would throw it out there in case you see this next. After lots of troubleshooting with the DISH people they finally gave me a new receiver and all is good now with the phone line and the 721.

 

[pacman]

Well, it looks like it may not have been the 721 after all. Our phones went out again this weekend, even with the 721 disconnected. Since I was home when this happened, I started troubleshooting it and found that there were a couple of items causing the problem - my computer's surge protector (with phone line surge protection) and my computer's modem. With both of those disconnected and everything else connected (including the 721) we have had working phones for over 2 days (last time it only took 2 hours to kill the phones with the 721 connected). I am wondering about a possible ground loop problem with the 721 and surge protector/modem...we will see how long it lasts.

 

[Big Bob]

pacman,
Do you have a security system? If so, that may be your cause as well.

 

[pacman]

Didn't think about that, but I suppose it could cause the same issue - will have to check that. But so far so good, phones are still working!