If you only have one phone line at home, your voicemail service may interfere with the fax functionality of your Brother machine.
No need to apply for a second line, there is a way around this problem. The solution is called distinctive ring service. It allows you to have more than one phone number on the same line.
First, call your telephone company and subscribe to the Distinctive Ring Service for a small fee. You will get another phone number on your current line and a specific ring pattern for that new number.
There are 4 ring patterns supported by the Brother machine
Pattern-1: Long-Long (Most commonly used)
Pattern-2: Short-Long-Short
Pattern-3: Short-Short-Long
Pattern-4: Very Long (Normal pattern)
The ring pattern that the telephone company provides you with will be assigned to your "FAX number".
Telephone companies may use different names for the same service. The following list shows the different names for the distinctive ring feature.
|
Telephone Company |
Name of Feature |
|
Bell South |
Ringmaster |
|
Qwest |
Custom Ringing |
|
Verizon |
Distinctive Ring |
|
AT&T |
Personalized Ring |
|
Others |
Teen Ring & Ident-A-Ring |
In case you are assigned a different ring pattern other than the 4 patterns mentioned, please contact your telephone company to get the one of the 4 that is supported by the Brother machine.
Secondly, register the ring pattern that your telephone company provides to you on your Brother machine following the procedure below.
- Press Menu.
- Press
or 
to choose Fax.
- Press OK.
- Press
or 
to choose Miscellaneous.
- Press OK.
- Press
or 
to choose Distinctive.
- Press OK.
- Press
or 
to choose Set.
- Press OK.
- Press
or 
to and your will be hearing each pattern as you scroll through the four patterns. Choose the pattern that the telephone company gave you.
- Press OK.
- Press Stop/Exit.
Please note that the "received mode" will be changed to manual when Distinctive Ring is set.
How the machine works after setting up distinctive ring feature:
The first two rings are silent on the machine. This is because the fax must "listen" to the ring pattern to compare it to the pattern that was registered. Other telephones on the same line will ring.
- Case-1 Voice Call
If you receive a Voice call, the telephone connected to the same phone line as your Brother machine will ring using the telephone ring pattern, so you can answer the call. Meanwhile your Brother machine will keep silent during the first 2 rings then start to ring using the telephone ring pattern.
- Case-2 FAX message
If you receive a FAX, the telephone connected to the same phone line as your Brother machine will notify this to you by using the FAX ring pattern twice, and then your Brother Machine will start receiving the documen.