Depending on local regulations and the telephone company you happen to be connected to, the voltage on a free telephone line can be anything between 42 and 60 volts. As it happens, that’s sufficient to make a diac conduct and act like a kind of zener diode maintaining a voltage of 38 V or so. The current required for this action causes the green high-efficiency LED in the circuit to light. Line voltages higher than about 50 V may require R1 to be changed from 10 kž to a slightly higher value.
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