volt/amp readings using multimeter on ADSL line

@Nutz: Please post some plots when you have time so that we can see exactly how much things have improved. So far those SNR values look very good for your attenuation.
 
Glad to hear things are acceptable in your neck of the woods.

Just some notes on your picture of your pole.
-The thick earth cable you note is actually a Stay Wire meant to counter the weight of the thick black aerial cable (possibly 10 pair)....because its the last pole, it most likely holds the whole route up. It it not meant to be an electrical connection to earth.
-the thin wire above the the thick aerial cable is a Screening Wire meant to divert lightning strikes away from the black cable. It will be electrically earthed at the DP (Distribution point where the feed emerges from underground cabling)
-Interestingly all the 50-60v from the exchange has Earth +ve 50volt on one wire and -ve 50volts on the other. So it stands to reason that any foreign contact of your line with earth will result in a short circuit or and imbalance in the line. An imbalance can cause reflection of the ADSL signal adding to its attenuation. Obviously not good.

Noted earlier in this post, connecting an Ammeter across the terminals of your jack plug will do no harm to the line or ammeter....so long as the phone line is not ringing at the time. Phones use the line current to determine the level of the AGC (AUTOMATIC GAIN CONTROL) for speech and side tone (so you hear yourself speak). Typical values would be 75mA close to the exchange and arround 40mA at some distance from the exchange. Difficult to fault find this way, but not impossible.
 
@leftfoot: 1 thing of note about that last pole/pic - when the tech tested with the sunset and dynatel units - he said the earth had a problem on that pole?.... he then took a LONG flatpoint screwdriver and a piece of telephone cable - poked it into the ground , and the test results were MUCH better.
 
Yes a sneaky way of getting a reference earth to prove an imbalanced line....If that was the techs intention, Im impressed as it it an old school method that the new "techs" in my experience dont use.
Imbalaced lines usually have a slight 50hz humm......This also goes for an earth contact with the negative wire.

The thin copper screen wire and the support wire inside the black cable (big thick Galvanised iron cable) should never be in contact....lightning flashovers can occur damaging the comms cable also inside the big black cable. I suspect this might have been the case as you indicated that the black cable had damage.
 
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Yup yup....

Hey guys,

I have to admit, I'm still laughing so hard I can hardly type this to you!!!!
220 up the phone line - ffs I'm so remembering that technique for next time!!!

Well... after 3 months, 20 something fault references and at least double that number on reopened faults, I finally did get my flaky DSL problem resolved.

Turned out it was faulty ports at the exchange (At least that's the last technician I spoke to's opinion).

Anyway, they can test this - they use an application called XAct Advance. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUSTANCES TALK TO A DSL TECH WHO DOES NOT HAVE ACCESS TO THIS APP AS THEY ARE JUNIOR AND HAVE ZERO CLUE WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT!!!!! SERIOUSLY - I CANNOT STRESS THIS POINT ENOUGH!! It's only through validation using this piece of software that a techie would even acknowledge that we HAD a problem at all!!

They talked me through setting up a stupid mf damn bridge so many times I can bridge a connection in my coffin never mind my sleep.

There are as you have mentioned numerous hardware interfaces between your PC and any resulting web server on the end of the line. Most telecoms providers have alerting to pick HW irregularities on switches, routers, lines and so on. Not Telkom, Not Saix. These people rely heavily on natural disasters as an alerting system (ESKOM can actually be helpful here ROFL again). THERE IS NO ACTIVE ALERTING MODEL TO DETECT DODGY PORTS AT THE LOCAL TELKOM EXCHANGE>>> This does not seem to have crossed their minds yet.

Anyway, I now have my full 4mb synch'ing happy as a pig in the proverbial you-know-what. INSIST that a "DSL Expert" (Seems a real position name at telkom) come review your case, and communicate with a Telkom side Tech with XAct Advance to diagnose. They are unlikely to tell you the final outcome, but it gets your problem solved. No line synch reduction, no swapping routers, no multiple ISP accounts, no config options that stuff up your connection prefs (Especially in a multi PC environment), etc etc etc.

I'm sorry to have read about your pains, as I have been there. I have spoken to literally 100's of telkom ppl, had my fault incorrectly closed, been belittled, ignored, pacified and generally patronized to the degree that I was almost ready to try anaraexia or other such mental anguish afflications.
One guys even told me I had maxed my cap - on the first - with no connection for 2 weeks on a non existant synch. HOW THE &^&*^ Is THAT Possible????

DO NOT LET THEM GET YOU DOWN - THEY SIMPLY HAVE NO CLUE!!

And for this they charge at LEAST triple rates to any overseas offering (Nevermind capping).

LONG DIE TELKOM!!!!
 
:twisted:

Not good to be back in this post - since mid december with all the rains - my connectivity has gone south ...

last night @ 9pm the phone goes dead and DSL drops dead. (2nd time since mid.dec09)

Sync profile before:

3072/512
Line attenuation down :49
Signal to Noise Ratio down: 21
Signal to Noise Ratio up: 14

This morning

3072/322
Line attenuation down :63.5
Signal to Noise ratio down: 20.5
Signal to Noise Ratio up: between 4 and 6!

Have dropped it now to

1024/384
Line attenuation down :63.5
Signal to Noise ratio down: 20.5
Signal to Noise Ratio up: between 4 and 6!

And each and every time they have to pump out water from the manholes close to the exchange.

Now my question is - Does the local municipality have to keep the storm water pipes/manholes clean or is that the property/responsibility of Telkom?

http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb147/jannie40/02jan1832_sat.jpg
 
[OUPA]MrNutz;3486611 said:
Now my question is - Does the local municipality have to keep the storm water pipes/manholes clean or is that the property/responsibility of Telkom?
Click to expand...

Many of the manholes are Telkom's own, hence they are responsible to keep them safe, clean and dry! Easy to identify - either has the old P&T logo or the new abbreviated Telkom logo ( a T in a box!).
 
I see an old thread revived. Experiencing the exact same problem as Oupa - ADSL losing sync intermittently during spells of wet weather.
This has been ongoing since September last year and still the Telscum mofo's want to blame my equipment.
Linespeed has been dropped from 4096 to 2048 to 1024 and still the same issue.
After 3 different routers (Billion, Netgear and Cisco), many different filters, numberous cable swaps, 3 different "spare" lines, disconnection from UPS, connection to a different power outlet, etc, etc, etc, the problem still hasn't been resolved.
I already have 12 different fault log ref numbers and haven't seen one job card completed by a Telscum tech.
When will these mofo's accept that the problem is at the exchange side of things and sort it out?
 
NoRulez said:
I see an old thread revived. Experiencing the exact same problem as Oupa - ADSL losing sync intermittently during spells of wet weather.
Click to expand...

Means somewhere along the line the copper is exposed to the elements.

I had a similar issue when it rained or the wind blew. The cable ran down the block between two lots and all most of the houses had trees on their neighbouring boundaries where the branches chafed the cable. I got them to replace the cable and just to make sure replace all jumpers in the route from me to the exchange :D
 
ponder said:
Means somewhere along the line the copper is exposed to the elements.

I had a similar issue when it rained or the wind blew. The cable ran down the block between two lots and all most of the houses had trees on their neighbouring boundaries where the branches chafed the cable. I got them to replace the cable and just to make sure replace all jumpers in the route from me to the exchange :D
Click to expand...
Already had the cable between the house and the pole replaced. From the pole it goes underground to the street box and then to the exchange about 4km away (by road). I'm positive it is a fault at the exchange, as the drops occur whenever there is thunder or rain in town and not even in our neighbourhood.
 
NoRulez said:
Already had the cable between the house and the pole replaced.

I'm positive it is a fault at the exchange, as the drops occur whenever there is thunder or rain in town and not even in our neighbourhood.
Click to expand...

That's a very small portion of the cable.

I cannot see how weather will influence equipment in the exchange seeing it's kinda isolated from the elements.
 
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