I rerouted a phone extension in my house recently and wired it back up the same way. It was working fine until a couple of days ago. Now when I pick up the phone on the extension, the main phone starts ringin - either that or there's just no dial tone. I've checked the wiring to make sure it's not loose....any other ideas?
Ronnie
Did you route the cable under a fitted carpet? the edge gripper may have pierced it or there may be something sharp under the carpet, as it was working initialy people walking over it may have damaged it. Did you use the correct tool for inserting the wires into the socket? the terminals can become damaged or make a poor contact
No - it doesn't go near any gripper.
I wasn't even aware there was a particular tool...do you know where I can see an example of one?
Cheers Ronnie
One of many....
Are you *sure* you rewired it the correct way - allowing for the fact that the numbering on most extension sockets is the *reverse* of that on the back of the BT linebox?
With line on 2 & 5 and ringing on 3, a ringing extension when going off-hook indicates the phone is wired across 2 & 3 (shorting the ringing cap and the phone ringer is responding to DC on the ringing wire) instead of 2 & 5.
Owain
RG wrote :-
Regards Jeff
As well as other posters have answered, check you have made the connections properly (the proper tool (or clones of it) is called a Krone Tool), but also carefully check that the cables on terminals 2 and
5 are not transposed at any point, because the symptoms you describe can be caused by this.
It's been working OK until recently... !
I took a photo on my digital camera before I started and used the same extension box when I'd rerouted it. Would it have worked at all if I'd got it wrong?
Something must be shorting I guess. I'll have another look at it. Maybe it's a connection further back in the wire that I've pulled loose or something?
R
Yes - if you had also not got a good contact on pin 3 which is quite possible if you were using a plastic thing to insert the wires.
We seem to be assuming the OP was using a socket with IDC terminals. If it's got screw terminals he'll not be needing any special tool.
dont for idc either.
NT
But there's a much higher chance of having problems with poor connections without one, especially if inexperienced which the OP sounds to be.
It's good advice, though. Using a screwdriver etc is likely to damage the contacts. You need a parallel faced 'pusher' of exactly the right thickness - especially if fitting two wires to the same connector.
terminals.
The blue pushers are fairly goof proof, but putting ascrewdriver just to one side and pulling on the wire works too - and its much quicker IME than finding the blue thing! For newbs, chances are they wont have a blue thing, and dont need it. Its only if you stick the screwdriver down the centre that things go wrong.
NT
Slightly OT, but why not use wireless (DECT) phones? They seem very cheap now.
1/ poor sound quality 2/ microwaved brain problems
I've got a few of those and the quality is comparable to most hard wired phones. Certainly good enough. It's those old AM analogue ones which gave poor quality to the 'other' end.
But if you want the best, for a home office say, then hardwired and a decent phone is a must. The quality difference is like comparing freeview to analoge TV.
Indeed, Freeview picture quality is usually considerably better and more consistent than analogue. In the same way DECT, unless you have some very poor ones, is at worst indisguishable from wired phones and often somewhat better because the signal processing opportunities are greater.
I have a mixture of Siemens and Philips DECT and Elmeg and Panasonic wired phones - it isn't possible to distinguish the speech quality between them. Even the cheap Binatones in the workshop (where instrument life tends to be short and end with "Where did you put the..oh b$££"r" and low cost is important) are perfectly good, if a little quiet.
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