One of the less-than-ideal things about my new house is the lack of working phone jacks. I’ve got two that are operational – both in the same room downstairs at the back of the house. :rolleyes:
I do know that when my house was being rented out as two separate apartments, the phone relay between upstairs and downstairs was severed. I’ve found what I believe is the master jack for upstairs, so I could connect it to the master jack for downstairs… if I knew what colour attached to what.
Downstairs is another story. I’ve got jacks in every room, (and a lot of ethernet wiring too), but it just doesn’t work. I suspect that something went wrong when the previous owner yanked out the alarm system (that was only downstairs) in the time between my final inspection and me getting the keys…
Generally speaking, all phone jacks are wired in parallel. Most systems have four wires, R,Y,G,B.
For 1-line systems, only two of the colors are used, usually red and green. But, you don’t even have to know how your house is wired - just make sure all the jacks are wired the same, and connect the same color wires from a no-working jack to a working one. Most jacks have an indication for the wire color.
One more thing: when working on live phone circuits, be sure at least one phone is plugged in and take it off the hook. This will prevent a ring signal–which is ~90VAC @ 20 Hz–from coming through and giving you an unpleasant surprise. It’s highly unlikely to kill you, but it can certainly cause a startle reaction that can result in injuries.
Better yet, don’t work on live circuits. Disconnect the phone line right where it comes into the house, and leave it disconnected until you are ready to test your new wiring.
Also, before you try to use the 2nd pair (yellow & black) wires for anything, check them out. Many times, techs didn’t even bother to connect them at jacks, since they weren’t being used. And in older houses, they may carry an ac power circuit of 6-12 volts used to power the lighted dials of the Princess phones. In that case, somewhere in the house will be a small transformer wired to the house 120V AC wiring, with the other side putting the low voltage into the 2nd pair. Find that transformer & remove it. It often seems to be located near the doorbell transformer.
Meh. The off-hook circuit voltage is only around 10 VDC. If you have a relatively new phone installation, you can easily disconnect it at the NID (the gray box screwqed to the wall outside below the telco drop line) but on older ones it can be tricky to even find the entrance bridge. Having worked on lots of old ones, I’m used to leaving them live and off-hook.
Hooking up the wire is really simple; I ran a wire under the house from my parent’s bedroom to mine when I was 13. The jack didn’t come out looking as pretty as it was functional, but that’s another story.
As stated, it’s most likely the red and green wires. You should be able to tell by popping open one of the jacks on the working lines. A quick trick I learned back then if you don’t remember what the colors are when you’re at the non-working jack, but with live wires is to touch two wires together at a time with the phones on the hook. When you have the right pair, the connected phones will ring. It’s not a real ring, more of a chirp, but it serves the purpose. I can’t vouch for the safety of this trick, but it works.
Also, an easy way to strip the small wires is to use a cigarette lighter. Make sure to put a piece of paper underneath to catch any stray drips, and stay away from the fumes. Also, don’t touch the wires to twist them until they cool down. I learned that the hard way. I used this method on the aforementioned line and it was still working 10 years later.
I wish I would have known this 13 years ago! :eek:
I think I’ll strip wires the old-fashioned way, with a sharp object, rather than try to avoid plastic fumes
But from what people are saying, I just get to play match-up and make sure all the reds are on one side and all the greens on another. Seems simple enough.
