Landline phones damaged from thunderstorm

[Mike S.]

I am trying to help my grandmother with a phone problem. I'm not
entirely sure what's going on (she's very confusing) but some
(possibly all) of the Caller ID displays on her home telephones are
garbled to the point where they're unreadable. I think it happened
after a thunderstorm where the electric went out. The phones work fine
except for the displays. It's on both the cordless and corded phones.

Is it at all possible that the storm would damage only the displays on
the phones but yet the phones still work fine otherwise? I can't be
sure, but I think even the cordless extension sets that aren't even
connected to the phone line have the garbled display. That seems
really strange to me.

I think the displays on at least five phones are damaged.

Just out of curiosity, could it be something on the phone line that's
damaged which is causing the garbled displays? Or is it actually the
phones which are damaged?

 

[Franc Zabkar]

On Mon, 1 Sep 2008 02:42:25 -0700 (PDT), "Mike S."
<littleboyblu87@yahoo.com> put finger to keyboard and composed:

I am trying to help my grandmother with a phone problem. I'm not
entirely sure what's going on (she's very confusing) but some
(possibly all) of the Caller ID displays on her home telephones are
garbled to the point where they're unreadable. I think it happened
after a thunderstorm where the electric went out. The phones work fine
except for the displays. It's on both the cordless and corded phones.

Is it at all possible that the storm would damage only the displays on
the phones but yet the phones still work fine otherwise? I can't be
sure, but I think even the cordless extension sets that aren't even
connected to the phone line have the garbled display. That seems
really strange to me.

There's the clue.

I think the displays on at least five phones are damaged.

It doesn't look like a display problem. Instead it appears that the
caller ID data is garbled before it gets to the display.

Just out of curiosity, could it be something on the phone line that's
damaged which is causing the garbled displays? Or is it actually the
phones which are damaged?

Could it be that one partially damaged phone is loading the line and
affecting the signal strength? I'd measure the voltage on the phone
line at the wall socket with all telephone devices and modems
disconnected (it's 52V here in Australia), then reconnect them and
measure again. There should be no appreciable difference. Of course
all phones must be on-hook for this test.

- Franc Zabkar
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