Spain Bound

Two questions:
1. How can I get the UK phones I brought with me to work in Spain.
2. Does anyone know of a reliable cheap call operator. The cheapest I've seen is CITRUS (calls to UK at 3 cents a minute). Trouble is, when you've never heard of a company, and they want you to sign a dd for an unspecified amount from your account, it makes you want to be sure they're ok. Has anyone heard of them? Are they ok?

Thanks a lot.

Beachcomber

You need a supply of BT primary sockets from the UK. Plug your UK telephone into the BT socket then wire the socket into the Telefónica outlet. They must be primary sockets as secondary ones do not contain the necessary components. You can also do it by bridging the two cables with a capacitor but I am not sure of the value of the capacitor required.

This web site may help you

http://www.wppltd.demon.co.uk/WPP/Wi...telephone.html

click on the 'foreign phones and modems' link at the bottom of the page for the specific information you require.

I use Elotek for low cost calls which are €06,9 (just under seven centimos) to the UK. I know this is double the price but you pay nothing up front and just get billed for the calls you make at the end of each month.

Mercedes

I use Elotek and Direct Telecome, found it was a bit cheaper to ring UK mobiles, so on some calls make it with them and others with Elotek. No upfront fees with either.

Thats my 2c

PBC_1966

Around 2 microfarads is the right value, so a standard value of 1.8 or 2.2uF is just fine. It needs to be a non-polarized component (i.e. not an electrolytic) with suitable voltage rating.

On a modern U.K. phone cord, you need to connect the incoming line across red and white, with the capacitor bridged between red and blue.

bfg69bug

or lob them out and get a spanish one? which will come with your new spanish telephone line at a cost of 1€ per month and have all the features u need on the phone?? the "messages" button...the "3 way call button" etc etc.

kjd

I live in the Republic of Ireland and RJ11 phone plugs are used here. These are the same connectors used throughout North America & in Spain.

A very simple adaptor is available to connect a UK phone to a standard eircom (Irish phone company) socket.



http://www.peats.ie/cgi-bin/shop/db....6&sid=871789x0

It contains a capacitor, which is necessary to make a UK phone ring.

This adaptor will work fine in Ireland, USA, Canada and should work in Spain.

It saves having to do a load of wiring, opening up Telefonica sockets and wiring in BT ones etc etc..

BT phone wiring's a little bit weird by international standards. Two wires enter your house, just like everwhere else. However, the master socket contains a capacitor which decouples the ringing signal and feeds it out on a 3rd wire to all the other extensions. Each telephone is connected up to two wires which provide the audio signals and a 3rd wire that provides the ring signal. This was done as in the old days when phones used pulse dialling if you dialled a number on an extension it would cause all of the other telephones to "tinkle"

In the USA, Canada, Ireland and most of the rest of the world (including Spain) a 2-wire system is used. Telephones have always been designed to ignore the tinkle created when other phones on the same circuit dial.

All of this "anti-tinkle" circuitry is no longer necessary as Tone/DTMF dialling has been the norm for many years.

However, if you plug a BT phone directly into a non BT socket, without the capacitor, some models will not ring as they expect the ringing signal to be delivered over a 3rd wire! However, many phones on the UK market thesedays will work perfectly well on either system. It's worth getting an adaptor with a capacitor though as you can never be sure !


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If you're using a UK phone in any country that doesn't use an RJ11 plug/socket system it's still advisable to use the above adaptor and then an RJ11 to whatever the local plug is adaptor as the capacitor will still be necessary!! E.g. if connecting a UK phone to a French phone socket

<BT PLUG>----- (Adaptor with capacitor) -----<RJ11 to French adaptor)

you will also find that RJ11 adaptors are available absolutely everywhere as RJ11 is the defacto international standard phone connector and is used pretty much everywhere. (You will even find an RJ11 plug and socket on the back/bottom of any UK telephone! [although, in typical BT fashion, it's wired in a non-standard way!!]


Also, some UK phones (particularly older ones) won't accept non BT caller ID signals. Others, particularly ones made by companies like Siemens etc will happily accept any caller ID protocol.

Again, BT are weird in this regard. Most countries (including the USA, Ireland, Canada, France, Germany [and most of Europe]) use the same / similar systems.

The usual way: The exchange sends a first long ring pulse followed by caller ID data.

In the UK the exchange reverses the polarity on the line then sends caller ID data.

Both systems achieve the same result! However, older and cheaper UK equipment won't work elsewhere and most european / american equipment will definitely not work in the UK.

NB Many british cable companies use European standard caller ID on their phone lines. This is why some BT called display phones don't work on NTL / Telewest lines!!

jaldridge

We use JazzTel for our calls and the service has been very good and much cheaper than Telefonica. They even give you a day of free calls every week!

sjjs

If you've got an internet connection, have you tried Skype? (http://skype.com)

I've just installed it and last night made a 25 minute call to the UK for about 50 Euro cents. If you're calling another Skype user it's free (apart from your connection costs to the internet).

I have a 56 k modem and there's a 6 second delay when calling another 56k modem user, a 3 second delay when calling someone with broadband but virtually no delay when calling a landline.

(And I'm not associated with this company in any way!)