INTRODUCTON:

The Ringer

This is the device that alerts you to an incoming call. It may be a bell, light, or
warbling tone. The telephone company sends a ringing signal which is an AC waveform.
Although the common frequency used in the United States is 20 HZ, it can be any
frequency between 15 and 68 Hz. Most of the world uses frequencies between 20 and
40 Hz. The voltage at the subscribers end depends upon loop length and number of
ringers attached to the line; it could be between 40 and 150 Volts.

In USA minimum ring voltage supplied is 40Vrms (delivered into a 5 REN load).
This is the must detect limit. There is also a minimum must ignore value of 10Vrms.
Ringing PBX's will vary greatly, but will generally guarantee to deliver 40Vrms into a 3 to
5 REN load (see user documentation).

Note that ringing voltage can be hazardous; when you're working on a phone
wiring ensure that it is disconnected at the network connection point. The telephone
company may or may not remove the 48v DC during ringing; as far as you're
concerned, this is not important. In the UK the 50v is maintained during ringing and
most telephone systems will not operate properly if this is removed.

The ringing cadence, the timing of ringing to pause, varies from company to
company. In the United States the cadence is normally 2 seconds of ringing to 4
seconds of pause. An unanswered phone in the United States will keep ringing until the
caller hangs up. But in some countries, the ringing will "time out" if the call is not
answered. In the UK ring timing goes .4 sec on, .2 sec off, .4 sec on, 2 sec off and then
repeats, whilst the "time out" is six minutes.

The most common ringing device used to be the gong ringer, a solenoid coil with
a clapper that strikes either a single or double bell. A gong ringer used to be the loudest
signalling device that is solely phone line powered.

Modern telephones now tend to use warbling ringers, which are usually ICs
powered by the rectified ringing signal. The audio transducer is either a piezoceramic
disk or a small loudspeaker via a transformer.

Ringers are isolated from the DC of the phone line by a capacitor. Gong ringers
in the United States use a 0.47uF capacitor, whilst in the UK the capacitor was 1.8uF.
Warbling ringers in the United States generally use a 1.0 uF capacitor. Telephone
companies in other parts of the world use capacitors between 0.2 and 2.0uF. The paper
capacitors of the past have been replaced almost exclusively with capacitors made of
Mylar film. Their voltage rating is always 250 Volts. The capacitor and ringer coil, or
Zeners in a warbling ringer, constitute a resonant circuit. When your phone is hung
up ("on hook") the ringer is across the line; if you have turned off the ringer you have
merely silenced the transducer, not removed the circuit from the line. On the old hard
wired telephone systems in the UK the bells of a multi-bell system were actually shorted
out when switched off.

Because there is only a certain amount of current available to drive ringers, if you
keep adding ringers to the phone line it will reach a point at which either all ringers will
cease to ring, some will cease to ring, or some ringers will ring weakly.

In the United States the phone company will guarantee to ring five normal
ringers. A normal ringer is defined as a standard gong ringer as supplied in a phone
company standard desk telephone. Value given to this ringer is Ringer Equivalence
Number (REN) 1. If you look at the FCC registration label of your telephone, modem, or
other device to be connected to the phone line, you'll see the REN number. It can be as
high as 3.2, which means that device consumes the equivalent power of 3.2 standard
ringers, or 0.0, which means it consumes no current when subjected to a ringing signal.
If you have problems with ringing, total up your RENs; if the total is greater than 5,
disconnect ringers until your REN is at 5 or below.

Other countries have various ways of expressing REN, and some systems will
handle no more than three of their standard ringers. In the UK the maximum REN is 4 .
But whatever the system, if you add extra equipment and the phones stop ringing, or
the phone answering machine won't pick up calls, the solution is disconnect ringers until
the problem is resolved. Warbling ringers tend to draw less current than gong ringers,
so changing from gong ringers to warbling ringers may help you spread the sound
better.
The American definition of 1 REN is the ringer power required by one ringer of an AT&T
standard 500 series telephone set in single-party configuration (ringer placed ACROSS
the line). In the UK it is the standard 700 type telephone.

Because a ringer is supposed to respond to AC waveforms, it will tend to respond

to transients (such as switching transients) when the phone is hung up, or when the
rotary dial is used on an extension phone. This is called "bell tap" in the United States;
in other countries, it's often called "bell tinkle." Bell tinkle can also be caused when
dialling out using a loop disconnect dial. While European and Asian phones tend to bell
tap, or tinkle, United States ringers that bell tap are considered defective, whilst bell
tinkle in the UK is frowned upon.

In the USA, because they only use two wires to connect telephones together, the
bell tap is designed out of gong ringers and fine tuned with bias springs. Warbling
ringers for use in the United States are designed not to respond to short transients; this
is usually accomplished by rectifying the AC and filtering it before it powers the IC, then
not switching on the output stage unless the voltage lasts long enough to charge a
second capacitor.

In the UK bell tinkle is stopped by the use of a three wire system between
telephones.
OUTPUT WAVEFORM:

Figure 1. AC Ringing Voltage Figure 2. Telephone Set A rings.

Figure 3. Telephone Set A Answers a Call. Figure 4. AC Ringing Voltage Set to 45V.
DISCUSSION:

In this laboratory experiment, our goal is to measure the AC Ringing Voltage and
Frequency and to evaluate the threshold voltage at which the analog telephone sets in
the Telephony Training System ring. The telephony training module, model 9431, was
used to perform this experiment.

First, we set up the central office just like we did on the previous experiment.
Then, open the telephony training system software and connect the oscilloscope probe
1 to TP2(AC ringing voltage) and make some necessary adjustments on the
oscilloscope settings. We observed that the output waveform of the AC ringing voltage
is a sine wave with RMS value of 87.1V and frequency of 20.3Hz. We can say that the
AC ringing voltage is North American standard because North American AC ringing
voltage frequency is 20Hz and our measured value is approximately equal. Next, we
connect the oscilloscope probe 2 to TP1. This means the voltage across telephone line
connected to Analog Line Interface A is going to be observed. We set some following
adjustments on the oscilloscope. We lift off the handset of the telephone set from the
cradle and dial the number of the telephone set A. As the telephone set rings, the
ringing pattern can be heard by the Analog Line Interface B, the caller before the Analog
Line Interface A, the called party, picks up. When the called party answers the call, the
AC ringing voltage immediately becomes DC current. Next, we set some adjustments
on the oscilloscopes settings and set the output voltage of the Ring Generator (AC
ringing voltage) to 45V. We observed that the AC ringing voltage decreases to 44.6V.
Then, we lift off the handset of telephone set B and dial the number of telephone set A.
Then, increase the resistance of the telephone line connected to Analog Line Interface A
until the telephone set A stops ringing. The value of resistance portrays the distance or
different line lengths. This makes the amplitude of the AC ringing voltage across the tip
and ring terminals decrease below the ringing threshold voltage with a measured value
of 41.3V.
 We are now done performing this laboratory experiment.

CONCLUSION:

We therefore conclude that the telephone sends a ringing signal which is an AC

waveform. The performed experiment is based on North American AC ringing voltage
frequency with 20Hz because the measured value is 20.3Hz. Whenever the telephone
rings, there is a ringing cadence - the timing of ringing to pause. When the called party
answers the call, the AC ringing voltage suddenly becomes DC Current. This DC
current is from Central Office battery. When the distance of a telephone set increases,
the amplitude of the AC ringing voltage decreases. When the AC ringing voltage is
below the threshold voltage the telephone set will stop ringing.
 UNIVERSITY OF THE EAST
College of Engineering
ECE Department

TELEPHONY AND MOBILE COMMUNICATION LABORATORY

NEC 512-1EC
Experiment No. 4

TELEPHONE RINGING

Submitted by:

MAGTAGOB, IVY T.
2013-01-25778

Submitted to:

ENGR. EDELITO HANDIG

Professor