Moving BT master socket, is this frowned upon?

[N. Thornton]

Here they sent an 'engineer' round when the master socket went o/c. I didnt even know there was a problem. I think it was genuine as they tested the sockets and replaced one.

Regards, NT

[Dave Liquorice]

Yes automatic testers exist but they generally only test once every

24hrs. It wouldn't make economic sense to send an engineer out to a single report of a fault either, a line that repeatedly tests faulty is another matter.

[Stephen Gilkes]

My 2 BT lines current end at a master socket in the back bedroom. I was going to call BT and ask them to move the master sockets out to my shed (which is being converted into an office).

But having thought about it, perhaps its best just to run extensions to the shed.

Will this affect my ADSL speed? As the OP asked, where can I get the exterior black BT cable to run out to the shed?

[Lurch]

It'd be cheaper if nothing else.

Have a look here.

SJW A.C.S. Ltd.

[Pete C]

Perhaps a nearby BT van could provide an 'offcut' in return for some beer money etc.

cheers, Pete.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Nothing is critical. BT black cable is onl useful in that it has a steel wire running through it to help it suspend over long runs.

CAT 5 is electrically perfectly good enough.

BT engineers are all subcontarcat anyway, and no one really gives a toss provided they have access to a master socket somewhere.

In my new house we simply picked up the old cable that had been re-reigged into the portakabin, slung it up a ladder, stuffed it through the eaves, and connected it via a chocolate block to some cat 5, and ran that to the master socket. Firuntaley I still had one that says 'BT digital access' on it.

ISDN works fine.

[StealthUK]

That's strange. My parents had a BT engineer call round as well but no fault had been reported. This guy insisted on replacing the master socket. A couple of weeks later they got a £50 engineer call-out charge sent to them!

I'm wondering whether the engineers are getting some kind of bonus per callout attended.

[Stephen Gilkes]

If I'm just going to run an extension from the master sockets ( I have 2 lines). Can I access the master sockets or do i have to use an extension cable that pulgs in to the front of the master socket. Someone told me that I cant use the black external cable anyway as it is missing a wire.

[Lurch]

You undo the two screws in the front of the master socket and the bottom half of the faceplate will pull away. On the rear of this are the required terminals for connecting to extension wiring.

Not true, you need 3 wires per line, so if you are running two lines on the extension cabling you need 3 pair cable, (6 wires). You can get cable in different cores, maybe someone told you of his experience assuming it was a standard cable that they had. For reference purposes, I have just fitted some 50pair cable for 48 digital extensions, that may be a little ott for your needs but you can go as large as you like. ..

SJW A.C.S. Ltd.

[Stephen Gilkes]

Which leads me onto... where can I get black 3 pair cable?

JW Hardy only has 2 pair in the telephone section.

[Lurch]

There are a few options here, give them a call to check on the exact match as they don't appear to list it.

Maplin list PB78K, but I think that's internal. I usually use internal grade cable, I haven't had any problems yet.

Put 'CW1308 external 3 pair' into

and see what you come up with. ..

SJW A.C.S. Ltd.

[Stephen Gilkes]

The socket is not quite as you say it should be but I think the procedure is the same.

I have put a couple of pics of the socket on the web here:

[Lurch]

extension wiring into the terminals you have there, 2,3&5 are the ones you need to use. ..

SJW A.C.S. Ltd.

[Set Square]

NOT a good idea to share one twisted pair between the bell circuits of two separate lines - which is what you're suggesting! This is likely to result in cross-talk - and the other bells ringing when they ain't supposed to! Far better to use 4-pair cable, and to ignore the redundant half of each pair used for the bell (pin 3).

[Lurch]

Not really. I've wired up multipair cables to analogue and digital extensions between patch panels and PBX's, never had that problem. Can't say I've seen it in smaller domestic situations either. ..

SJW A.C.S. Ltd.

[Stephen Gilkes]

[Zymurgy]

Methinks you worry too much.

Any decent kit (i.e something that's not been cobbled up in a 3rd party case) has a wide operating temperature, and it is the rate of change of the ambient temperature that causes an issue, not the actual maximum or minimum temperatures.

My firewall (Compaq Pentium 2) is in the loft with no special insulation around it, and the projected low for tonight is -4.

I'm not worried about it. It will just get extra cooling this evening ;-)

I have had computer room air conditioning failures causing a very steep step change in temperature (up to ~32 degrees C in 1 case) I had

3 disk failures out of an installed base of ~600 and 1 machine auto shut down due to overtemperature out of 200 (and this was found to be too close to adjacent kit).

Similarly I have seen machines operate at either end of their envelopes [1] without incident.

Cheers,

Paul.

[1] Spec sheets on mine say: 5 to 35 C Operating

-20 to +60 Non Operating

[Andy Hall]

I don't disagree that rate of change can have a big effect, although high continuous temperatures do affect the failure rate of electronics in general. For example, it is common to do accelerated tests at high temperatures to check for failure in new designs.

The low end generally doesn't matter unless the air is very damp because the equipment itself will generate enough warmth to keep it dry.

High end can be a problem because 35 or 40 degrees max operating ambient is very typical for IT equipment. In a loft in the summer, even without the extremes of last summer, that can be reached for a few hours in the early afternoon.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[Andy Luckman (AJL Electronics)]

If you don't mind crosstalk from the ring signal? I did that in the office as a quick temporary job. The cable is about 5m long and the crosstalk when the other line rings is quite loud.

[Stephen Gilkes]

One of the 2 lines that I am extending will be for my ADSL access.

Will having the filter connected to the extension socket affect my ADSL connection?