I just got what I thought was a call on my cell phone. It rang as normal. I looked at the phone, the screen said “Call,” flashing in the center. (It would normally say “Cecil cell” and the phone number, or “Private Number.”)
When I answered, it was silent, except for a mid-high pitched tone lasting about a second, heard every three seconds. I hung up after a few tones, and checked my Call Log function. The last call in there is one I received last night- no record of this mystery call.
I got a similar call yesterday, maybe, or the day before. I have T-Mobile, and I’m using one of the (now) lower-end Nokia phones.
If it weren’t for the call log weirdness, I’d say it sounded like a fax machine was dialing your number. But I can’t explain why it souldn’t show up on your call logs. Even a caller-ID-blocked incoming call should be logged (on my Samsung, it says “CID Blocked” next to logged incoming calls, in that case).
Hrm, y’know, it did sound like those initial beeps a fax makes. (But I haven’t heard anythign similar from any modem. These beeps were much lower in tone than the initial deeee-deeeeee-deeeee-crrrrrkkkk sounds of a modem/fax.)
And the “Private number” is what I get when a blocked number calls me.
I believe that’s happened to me before in an area where I had really crappy reception. So instead, I looked at the caller, and it just said something like “Call”, I picked up, and I couldn’t really hear anything since I was in a poor reception area. I just figured the reason it only said “Call” was due to the lack of signal.
Even weirder today… Same thing happened, but instead of a generic “Call” flashing on the screen, it said, “Private number,” just as if someone with Caller ID blocked called me.
It also seems to happen about the same time every day- 10:30ish Pacific.
And dammit, it woke me up from a really cool dream! What the @#$%ing deal?
About the only thing I can suggest is to call your service provider and ask to talk to a technical support person. Perhaps they can shed some light on the nature of these calls?
Well, in Europe my Nokia mobile would sometimes not display any caller identification for overseas calls. Just like your phone, there were three levels of ID: “[name of caller],” “Private/unknown number,” and a blank, mysterious “call.” It only occurred on calls from the US (although occassionally, the number would be IDed. I never understood why sometimes it did ID the caller, and other times it didn’t) and it would not register in the log, either. Come to think of it, I think voice-over-IP calls also registered on my phone with a blank ID.
Before the SCREE SCREE SCREE WHOOSH sound a fax makes, it transmits exactly the sort of tones you’re describing.
Here’s a breakdown of how a fax machine establishes a connection:
The transmitter calls the receiving fax machine. The transmitter will generate the dialing signal and then continuously send out a CNG tone (the beep…beep…beep that you were describing) which is used to signal an auto receive fax machine that another fax is making the call.
The phone line on the receiving side will ring and the receiving fax will pick up the line and send out a CED tone (the CED tone is only sent when the receiving machine hears the CNG tone). This tone only tells the transmitter that it has connected to a fax machine.
The receiving fax then sends out a PREAMBLE signal (the SCREE SCREE SCREE WHOOSH sound). This signal is a series of flags that are sent out to condition the phone line and to synchronize the two modems. A PREAMBLE will be generated just before any binary information is sent over the phone line.
Then the transmission of the document begins.
So what you’re hearing is the CNG tone. Since you’re not sending back a CED tone, the CNG tone continues for a short period, then disconnects.
So someone out there thinks your cell phone number is a fax machine.
Rico, thianks for that info… interesting even without my phone predicament.
But two questions arise…
One, I most definitely do hear the PREAMBLE signal sometimes when I get an incoming call. People try to fax to our work number all the time, and when we answer, our earhole gets shredded from the fax tones. And, I know I’ve done the same before, called a fax/modem number and was greeted by the PREAMBLE.
Two, even if it’s a fax calling me, why wouldn’t a caller ID number show up, and why wouldn’t anything show up in the call log?