really old phone lines

[TWayne]

You're bound determined to justify it aren't you? What you showed is not a RJ-11 jack which is what would be used in the home. If you plug any residential phone into a jack such as you described, it will not work from the yellow/green wires. It will work from the tip/ring pair at pins 3 & 4 ONLY. You also left out pins; there are 8 on the wiring you showed, which is shown incorrectly. Telephones do not come with some wired for pins 3 & 4 and others wired for other pins: In fact, very often the silver & gray telephone cables only consist of 2 actual conductors.

If you were to try to use the yellow/black for tip & ring, you would have to terminate those wires in hte jack the phone connects to at the normal positions in the box for the red/gree pair. so the yellow wire would go where it says red and the black to where it says green. Clearly wrong.

If a telco wires in a 2-line system, they will not use 6-conductor standard phone cable but will use 8 conductor instead, and 8 pin RJ jacks vs the 6 pin RJ11 jacks. The specs dictate that so that, where the wires are no longer twisted within the jacket of the cable, a distance can be maintained between them to keep line to line crosstalk from occurring.

I detest misinformation and especially when it comes from some moron who guesses at what the rules and regs say and want to justify their own existance by giving incorrect information. Whether you looked up "tip" and "ring" or just think they were handy buzz words, they are very real and have distinct meanings within the installations. You CAN connect another line to the black/yellow pair, but then you'll have some phones that don't work and need rewiring at the box, and a very good chance of crosstalk between the two lines, especially since I doubt you would know how to keep non-twisted sections short and the rest of the things any novice installer would know. If youwant the nitty gritty it exists in the CFR, Title 47, Part 68. Go educate yourself or quit giving out misinformation that can cause other people problems.

NOW the case is closed because I've no more food for you to troll on; you're on your own.

[TWayne]

No, you didn't.

[TWayne]

They always used the center-pair for the first one. That way no matter what happened with polarities, there would at least always be a connection. Something I found in an old, POTS history book once.

[TWayne]

Which was a real blessing! They will still do the wiring though, if you want them to. And you're right, these days they have a cadre of "approved" contractors do the wiring. But it's not cheap. It used to be done by their own technicians "back when" but no more. You can even do your own digital wiring these days of course and it's much easier and a lot clearer what to do now; you almost can't go wrong with digital except that there are so many different kinds. For those, excepting some DSL lo speed stuff, you really have to have CAT5 or the new CAT6 depending, or the lines just won't work well. I ran new CAT 5 for all my wiring as soon as I discovered we were goint to get DSL so I don't know how bad it gets with the old wiring. Pretty bad I imagine, esp if it's old enough to not be twisted pair cable. I haven't seen it, but I understand you can even get CAT5 or 6 cable with a sheath for grounding; I guess Faraday lives on!

Cheers,

Twayne

You

[TWayne]

Is that still true today about no demarc? Where are you located? I'm curious. I was under the impression if there wasn't a modern demarc box, or if there wasn't one, they were required to install one. The new demarcs also have the advantage of getting rid of the old 600V gas tubes in favor of better components for the first-level surge protection. What bothers me about that is that even if there is no demarc box, the demarcation point is still considered to be the wall where the wiring enters from outside and from that point on it's the customer's responsibility. From my experience, knowledge the demarcation point can never go inside a building's walls without special waivers etc. for factories, etc. where outside access would be dangerous or impossible for whatever reason. An example would be a prison but there are lots of others. And they require 24/7 access to the demarcs.

Strange

Cheers,

[TWayne]

Hmm, please cite your source? I'd like a look at them for myself. I'm wondering if you aren't mixing up different RJ families of connectors or something or whether something has changed. At least from CFR data on the 'net, nothing has changed so it would have had to have happened within the last say two to three years at the most. But there are of course, multi-line phone jacks and cabling required to cable them up. But you can't plug a "normal" telephone into them; they're made for special equipment. Blue/White for what it's worth is part a large jack/connector combination and nothing you would ever find in the home or even stores that sell phone equipment unless they also sold key sets, PBXs and what not. I've never even seen pure blue here in the states; only in the UK.

TIA,

Twayne

[TWayne]

You can still buy small key systems; quite a few places make them. I know Mitel Inc. manufactures them for their North American market.

[TWayne]

Heck, it's just the column 3 row 4 key (#)!

[TWayne]

I didn't mean it was illegal; I SAID, the TELCO will not wire a residential RJ-11 that way. Read!

[terry]

Those voltage numbers are tyoical and correct. Most telephone sytems apply 48 volts DC to the line while waiting for a call to be made. When the phone is 'off hook' (in use) a small portion of that 48 is cross the phone, to activate the microphone in the handset etc. There are a few systems (not common in North America or the UK) that used 24 volts. (Worked in the industry 1952 to 1992).

As mentioned ringing is AC (Alternating current) typically at around

20 hertz (cycles per second) compared to ouir regular electric supply which is 60 hertz (In North America, but often 50 hertz elswhere!), at around 90 volts. That can give a bit of a bite but not likely harm you.

Assuming we are talking North American telephone systems; since it isn't clear where the OP is located?

Yes; use the red and green wires to hook up the phone. If the added phone does not ring (and you want it to) try hooking say the yellow from the phone itself (not the yellow wire from the wall) to red or the green and get somebody to call you. If that doesn't work you may have to make a jumper change inside the phone itself; depending on what model of the many thousands of phones that have been made!

Also make sure any jacks into which the phones plug are in nice dry locations. Outside walls are not good places (in a cold climate anyway) and some when they get damp can cause problems which can hold up a telephone line and/or trip ringing before one answers. If wiring is deteriorated replace it; nothing worse for both you and the telco. of a faulty telephone line and if a problem is inside the house can be costly in terms of a telco billing for trouble shooting it.

[Uncle Monster]

Colors don't matter if YOU are the only one to ever service the system. Understand that there are people who are supposed to be service techs who are lost when the wire colors don't match up. That's why there are color codes and standards to go by. It makes it easier for those who need a little hand holding.

[8~{} Uncle Monster

[Uncle Monster]

Radio Shack sold 3 wire phone cable at one time but a check of their site doesn't show it now. I think I actually have a roll of the RS brand

3 wire somewhere. [8~{} Uncle Monster

[AZ Nomad]

I don't recall them ever calling it phone wire.

[dpb]

May have something to do w/ the old Western Electric thing??? :)

In '78 the new house was wired by WE and the basement wasn't yet finished but was intended. The very kind installer left me an end spool of cable to use when I got the walls up. A number of years later there was a service call -- when I got home that evening, I noticed the remaining spool of wire had left w/ the telephone guy--still protective after all those years!!!

--

[Uncle Monster]

Well, that's specific.

[8~{} Uncle Monster

[aemeijers]

No, I meant wasn't doing anything illegal, like helping the young ladies steal service.

As to my place- Ma bell 1960's 4-color non-twisted prewire, ma bell fittings inside, and a ma bell demarc with the yellow and black neatly plugged into the second rj11 on the customer-accessible side, hooked up to the second pair on the 1978-vintage drop. Smells like telco to me. A lot of the houses where I ran across it WERE wired in the pre-modular era, with the old 4-pin jacks or hardwired plates, the lovely round ones. Most had been 'upgraded' to modular at some point. (But the phones still had build dates from the 50s and 60s on them, in many cases. I miss real phones....)

-- aem sends...

[Mark Lloyd]

I have had wire around when calling for service. I'd hide it (and tools too).

[Mark Lloyd]

Makes sense. For some reason, ethernet cables avoid using the center pair.

These 3 pairs weren't in a row, so "center pair" here is meaningless. It would mans something on a jack, but not this non-connected cable.

I never got to see the connections to the only jack installed when the house was now. There were provisions for jacks in the bedrooms. Wire was installed, but no jacks. I later added a couple of jacks, and used an 8-ohm speaker to find the active pair.

[Mark Lloyd]

For one thing, it isn't A source, but multiple sources. No way would I be able to remember every little thing.

However, I do remember the latest one. About 2 and a half years ago I bought some 6P6C modular plugs (called RJ12 IIRC) from Lowe's. The instructions on the package describe them being used for up to 3 lines.

Sorry I couldn't help with that. I never even wanted that information (I was using the connectors for something else*), let alone felt a need to keep it around.

I've never seen one for 3 lines, but 2-line adapters seem commonly available here. I'm looking at one now. It has a 6P4C male with 3 female connectors, wired as follows:

first jack (marked L1):

1 - 2- 3 - wired to 3 4 - wired to 4 5 - 6 -

second jack (marked L2):

1 - 2- 3 - wired to 5 4 - wired to 2 5 - 6 -

third jack (marked L1+L2):

1 - 2 - wired to 2 3 - wired to 3 4 - wired to 4 5 - wired to 5 6 -

For some reason the second jack has the connections reversed.

That's wrong, considering what I found in Lowe's (see above). IIRC that's all they sell.

Pure blue? What sort of impure blue did you see?

• - holiday light control, which I've posted about elsewhere and isn't really on topic here.

[dpb]

Mark Lloyd wrote: ...

If I'd have thought of it, I would have, too...still ticked off about that one... :(