# Caller ID question



## Scott D (Jun 17, 2001)

Is it possible that the setups and configurations are correctly installed and everything, that the caller ID function won't work correctly maybe because there are too many phones connected to the line?

I have 5 telephones and 4 TiVo's hooked into my telephone system. I forget what the telephone company calls it when they check the line's integrity, stress test maybe, but wouldn't that weaken the signal where some of the TiVo's won't get the Caller ID signal? Too much voltage drop?


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## Finnstang (Sep 11, 2003)

Are these hacked tivo's and are they all connected to your network? If so, why not use NCID with one tivo getting the data and being the server and the others just get the data from the server.


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## 100Tbps (May 12, 2006)

Scott D said:


> Is it possible that the setups and configurations are correctly installed and everything, that the caller ID function won't work correctly maybe because there are too many phones connected to the line?
> 
> I have 5 telephones and 4 TiVo's hooked into my telephone system. I forget what the telephone company calls it when they check the line's integrity, stress test maybe, but wouldn't that weaken the signal where some of the TiVo's won't get the Caller ID signal? Too much voltage drop?


You're asking about the Ringer Equivalency Number:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringer_equivalency_number

If you have them all daisy chained, place a regular phone at the end of the chain. If it still rings, you're getting enough line voltage through. But caller-id information isn't carried in the voltage, that just causes the ring. The actual caller-id data is transmitted as data. This explains it pretty nicely:
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question409.htm

Again, same test - if you're daisy chained, place a caller-id capable phone at the end of the chain and see if things work.

If things aren't daisy chained and you just have a lot of stuff, place a splitter to share the line between the tivo and a phone and if the phone gets the info, the tivo should, too. If you're unit is hacked, you can check the log to see the calling party information and know it was received.

I've noticed my on-screen caller-id (w/6.3a) works fine after a reboot but at some point quits working. I haven't attempted to diagnose it.


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## willardcpa (Feb 23, 2001)

Finnstang said:


> Are these hacked tivo's and are they all connected to your network? If so, why not use NCID with one tivo getting the data and being the server and the others just get the data from the server.


That's the answer. I had the same problem trying to get four DTivos to have CID on them, none of em would. Then I went with the server/client setup and it works like a charm. There was a short conversation about this in one of the threads about six months ago. I'd look it up and link to it, but I don't want to read through all of those pages, I have a life.  
Side benefit, I've also got NCIDpop on my computers and they get CID from the server DTivo.


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## tall1 (Oct 12, 2004)

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=3669503&&#post3669503


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