I think this only happens on cable lines with pre-diallers, BT lines are fine. The only effect of the Orchid you'll notice is a funny sounding dial tone which you quickly get used to.

Cable lines have insufficient current to power the pre-dialler, hence the problem. These devices switch the phone direct (bypassing the dialler circuit) once they've done their bit so in theory crackling should be impossible.

If you dial 17070 and select silent line test you can listen without the dialtone in the way.

A while ago the pole was replaced outside my house. The reason, I'll come to in a bit. There was crackling on the line after that, and sometimes the dialtone would go. Ringing the line usually brought it back for a short time, due to the ringing current.

It was obviously an intermittent fault, and one that wasn't going to go away. So I reported it to 150. I had to insist that the kid on the other end reported it, even though it showed as OK on his computer screen. What part of "intermittent" isn't clear?

Now for the reason the pole was replaced. I really do despair at the stupidity of things these days. Some new rule means that BT must check all dropwires and ensure that they are above a new limit. I'm not sure where the ruling is from, maybe the EU, they're famed for daft ideas. New poles have sprung up, where previously the dropwire would go directly from pole to property.

Some of the dropwires were a foot or two below the new limit, as the guy doing the surveying showed me. All properties are normal houses and not bungalows. Now the wires have been there for many years, and no tall vehicles have pulled them down to date. I am still awaiting this large vehicle, which should it manage to get down the entrance into my square would probably have to go across the grass in the middle. Yes, you guessed it, the rule only applies to wires above the carriageway!

Of course, it would have been sensible to make this new rule to only apply to new installations. But this sort of nonsense is how the 21st century British telephone network is run.

Funny you should mention that.

When I switched to ISDN some years ago, the BT guys found my Crackling telephone line was caused by the wire from my house across the road to the pole was disintegrating. They changed it and when they were re-attaching it to the house, one of them commented that it looked a bit low. He got out his measuring stick and sure enough, it was about 2 foot below the new reg's.

Now we have an HGV Tyre depot down our road so regular visitors are pretty big, but to date no mishaps. Luckily we have a house & not a bungalow. He managed to raise it up the side enough to increase the height over the road, otherwise I could see me having to have a new pole in my front garden !

I couldn't believe the improvement in the line - no more crackling, 50k instead of 40k from my modem and no more regularly dropped connections.
I'm forever thankful to those BT guys.