Unofficial magicJack forum

snafu2 · MagicJack User Joined: 28 Nov 2007 Posts: 35

For what it's worth:

My situation may be unique, but most of the time my inbound CID would not display on my various phones (five mixed Uniden models) whole house setup, but did show correctly on the softphone.

I put a 100k ohm resister across the line and now all work great.

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Poo619 · MagicJack Expert Joined: 20 Nov 2007 Posts: 94

good to know. For us less intelligent Smile

would you mind explaining what that does and how you got the idea to do it

snafu2 · MagicJack User Joined: 28 Nov 2007 Posts: 35

My observations. With one phone only, CID worked. As soon as I hooked up the whole house it would not. So I disconnected all house phones leaving just the one phone (located at the MJ) and the in-house wiring connected to MJ. Still no go.

I checked the wiring for resistance and foreign voltage and all looked good. My guess was that the capacitance across the line was the culprit...if so, this may be a design error in the MJ....although I do have long runs of house phone cable.

I started at one meg ohm and got an improvement and kept lowering resistance until I got off-hook. . Got off-hook condition at about 20k as I recall...Settled at 100k.

Just a tinkerer looking for an easy cure.... engineer I am not.

prackjack · Newbie Joined: 27 Nov 2007 Posts: 9

Sounds like something I might need, but could you spell it out in layman's terms as far as "How To" physically integrate the resistor?

Thx

snafu2 · MagicJack User Joined: 28 Nov 2007 Posts: 35

Use a phone cable with modular RJ-11 connectors (standard phone plug) and cut off a piece a few inches from one end. Strip out the red and green wires and connect one end of resister to the red and the other end of resistor to the green. If you have only two wires, or ones that are not color coded, use them. Get a modular phone coupler, one that converts a single modular jack into two modular jacks.

Plug the resistor cable into one jack and connect the MJ to the other. Plug the coupler into your wall jack and that should do it. If you have a telephone interface box, it will have screws so you could put the resistor in it. I would make sure any connections to the outside world are unplugged.

I hope this isn't oversimplified, but better more than less info....Good luck.

prackjack · Newbie Joined: 27 Nov 2007 Posts: 9

Snafu2 -- That's just the right level for me... Off to Radioshack, will report back on my experience.

Thx

prackjack · Newbie Joined: 27 Nov 2007 Posts: 9

Well, I went out and bought some resistors and then I remembered I had a powered USB hub sitting downstairs. I tried that first and voila, it worked. Caller ID is now working and the calls also seem to be a bit clearer (that part could be my imagination). I'll keep the resistors on hand for the next project Smile

LikeMagic · Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 8:55 pm Post subject:

My MJ does not display incoming CID for my cordless phone but displays CID fine on the PC. I may have to try the 100K resistor trick. I currently rely on the PC display to know who's calling. I want to run MJ as a service so working CID on the phone is important to me.

Anyone knows if MJ has an official fix for this bug?

BTW, I connected my MJ directly to my PC's USB, no CID on phone. Tried to connect it to the powered USB hub, still no dice! And that's with only one cordless phone hooked up directly to the MJ.

Emdev2 · Newbie Joined: 23 Dec 2007 Posts: 9

SpamBox · Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 3:07 am Post subject:

snafu2 · MagicJack User Joined: 28 Nov 2007 Posts: 35

Hey emdev2, My setup just about mirrors yours. Also noticed the power adapter affecting cid intermittently. The resistor fix is still working great for me.

LikeMagic · Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 3:06 pm Post subject:

Just installed a 100K resistor trick and it works, my incoming CID is now displayed after the first ring. Snafu2, ya DA man Laughing

!! Thanks for the tip.

Hopefully, MagicJack is reading this forum to implement this fix for the revised MJ hardware.

SpamBox · Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 2:16 am Post subject:

LikeMagic · Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 11:12 pm Post subject:

Here's the picture of my 100K resistor mod in a standard phone jack coupler (MagicJack <---> Coupler <---> Telephone):

Note: if you perform this mod, don't forget to use electrical tape to cover the resistor's exposed wires to prevent short Smile

Ponithog · Newbie Joined: 29 Jan 2008 Posts: 6

Likemagic

Does it matter the type of 100K resistor, I am looking at 1/4 or 1/2 watt choices and I wanted to make sure I get the correct one.

Does it make a difference?

Thanks

Ponti