telecoil equiped cell phone.

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Adam

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first let me apologize if this topic has already been covered. I'm sure it has. but can't find any posts on it.

ok heres the deal. about 6 months ago i went Deaf. just in the last 2 months i have recieved 2 cochlear implants.
My cell phone is a blackberry curve 8520 smartphone.

I cannot hear on the phone right now. I do have an FM boot which i attatched to my processor and switched to telecoil mode but all i get is a bunch of static.

1) is the blackberry 8520 even equiped with a telecoil? should I look for another phone? which ones have telecoils

i am on t mobiles plan so would need to find a phone that would work with them. i really like the blackberry for the keyboard but I am going to need to be able to use the phone part as well.

Any thoughts?
 
Lot of CI come with blue tooth technology and if you can find a phone that support blue tooth technology.. it's the best way to go. The reason of getting all static is because of antenna is too close to the t-coil. So, if you get a blue tooth adapter for your CI and you should have no problem with your BB with blue tooth supported.
 
Actually to the best of my knowledge no CI's currently have any Bluetooth capabilities built in...

Having said that there are various ways of using a bluetooth enabled phone and getting the infomation over to the CI. There are a number of posts on this topic already. The most common setup seems to use a bluetooth adapter that is either worn around the neck or clipped onto a piece of clothing. This then is wired up to the DAI input on the CI.

Another possibility is using a bluetooth earpiece that doesnt sit deep in the ear. This allows the sound to "leak" out to the normal microphone on the CI. Something like the Motorola H700 etc. Unfortunately this places another item on the ear that already has a BTE processor on it.

A third possibility would be using the bluetooth adapter mentioned in the first example but attaching a telecoil ear hook to it, they are quite small and would sit up on the ear beside the BTE processor.


I am also recently implanted with a MED-EL implant and am progressing very well wrt speech understanding but still having a hard time with the phone. The volume is great but the quality isnt the greatest yet...still working on it though after all its only been a month.

I cant use my personal cell phone (samsung) with the T-Coil as it doesnt seem to have enough power to engage...just get a bunch of weird feedback. But when I use it with the normal CI mic it isnt too bad. I also have a Motorola KRZR from work and it is much better with the mic. I will have to try it with the T-Coil tomorrow. Work is getting me a Blackberry Torch to help me with my communication, eg texting, email etc when Im in the field, however Blackberry is very highly regarded as being a very "deaf compatible" phone. I cant speak for your specific model though. They usually have the highest T rating possible (T4 i think).

So to make a long story short, I would try out a few different models to see how they work both with the T coil and without...with my home phone I would say the T Coil is a bit better than the straight mic, mostly because the background noise cant make its way in and confuse me...
 
PT

Actually bluetooth really isn't my issue. The opus 2 has a built in Telecoil. I have an FM boot from my previous hearing aid. I had a lot of trouble hearing on the cell phone so i put the ALD battery pack cover on the processor and attached the boot. then on the fine tuner selected T. tried to use the phone and got nothing but wicked static.
I am trying to figure out my next step. Is it the phone? is it the FM boot? do i need something else to go along with the boot like a neckloop or something?
I'm pretty confused about the whole FM, Telecoil, neckloop, thing.

I am a month out on CI #1 and CI #2 was activated on Monday.
 
Adam

The FM boot is irrelevant for using the T-Coil....you should be able to use the CI "as is" with the exception of pressing the T (telecoil) or the MT (Microphone and telecoil) button on the Finetuner. The telecoil feature is built in to the OPUS 2 unit itself. The other battery cover is only used when hooking up the DAI cable to listen to an Ipod or the like. With no phone at the processor you will hear static when on the Tcoil mode...this disappears when the t-coil connects with the phone.

I am not at all familiar with FM systems as I have never used one but I believe the premise behind them would be in a scenario like a classroom where the teacher would have a microphone/FM transmitter and the FM boot is essentially an FM receiver which will then pick up those signals and put them directly into the ear. I don't know if the hookup is universal or not...ie I dont know if another brand of FM boot will work with the CI. I personally wouldnt be hooking up any other brands accessory without confirming with the Audiologist that it wouldnt damage anything.,,,just my two cents.

Having said that, you are trying to do the wrong thing with the wrong equipment. A telecoil uses the magnetic field from the speaker in the phone to turn on, not FM radio waves. Just use the OPUS 2 as is without anything hooked up to it and it should come on when you switch the T-coil on and put an active (ie at least have dial tone going) phone up to the processor. You may have to put it up at the microphone port to get the strongest signal....Try it out with a landline phone first so you get the hang of it, then progress to the cell phone.....it may very well be the cell phone speaker is not strong enough to activate the t-coil as is the case with one of my phones.

A good explanation of how T-coils work

Telecoils in Plain Language

they do talk about using it with an FM system but that would not use the fm boot, you would have a separate FM receiver that the loop would plug into, then the Tcoil would pick it up.....not really useful in your scenario.
 
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