This Tech Tip demonstrates how solve common paging issues that you may experience on the NEC DSX phone system.
Instructions
An NEC DSX Installer called today. He was performing an NEC DSX-80 install and told me he could not get the paging to work. He could hear the page over the phones, however he could not hear it through the overhead speakers.
I asked what kind of paging system he had?
He said: “5 warehouse horns and a paging amp”.
I told him to unplug the connector from the CPU card, and asked if it was a mono or stereo plug? It must be a mono plug, stereo will not work (A mono plug has 2 metal sections with 1 spacer between them. A stereo plug has 3 metal sections with 2 spacer between them). He told me mono it was a mono plug.
I told him to put his tone generator on to the 2 metal sections of the mono plug and listen for the toner through the page horns. He told me: “I’m not hearing any sound”.
I told him to go to the amp page input connections and do the same thing with the toner. He did this, and yes his toner was now playing through the horns.
At that point he knew what I was going to tell him which was that the problem lies somewhere in the connection he had made from the CPU to the amp, and to work backwards until he found the problem.
He did this and called me back saying the toner now worked all the way, however after he plugged it back into the CPU card he still could not hear the horns when paging.
I had him test the page while I listened. He kept saying “TEST, TEST”, I told him that instead of saying “TEST” he should blow into the receiver. He did this and he heard it. What was happening is that he was working alone and from where he was standing, when he said “TEST, TEST”, he was hearing himself and therefore could not hear the horns.
I told him to always test paging by blowing through the receiver, because when you say a word, you tend to hear yourself and therefore sometimes you cannot hear your speakers.
Problem solved.
