telephone wiring questions

[spoon2001]

I am redoing some phone wiring and have some questions. I'm thinking that I might as well wire for two lines while I'm at it.

First, an explanation of my existing wiring. The cable from the telephone company goes to an old 98A lightning protector in what used to be our garage, now the attic of our den. Here is a picture:

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Notice two thick black wires from phone company connected to the two terminals at the top of the lightning protector.

QUESTION ONE. The cable from the telephone pole to the lightning protector has two thick wires. To get an additional line, would the phone company replace that with a 4-wire cable, or what?

The connections run through the fuses to the two terminals at the bottom.

The outgoing wire is the white cable to the left. The red wire is connected to the bottom right terminal, the green wire is connected to the bottom left terminal. The yellow and black wires are wrapped around the white insulation.

(A second pair of red and green wires is also connected to these bottom terminals. These run directly to a phone in the den, without going through the network box.)

The white wire to the left runs back outside to a network interface box. Here is a picture of the network interface box. Here is a picture:

Network Interface Device

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The white line from the lightning protector comes in on the bottom right. Note that the NID has two sides, one designated "Line 1", the other "Line

2". A set of 4 terminals - RGBY - is mounted on the Line One side.

QUESTION TWO. I can't tell from the picture - I'll have to go up on the roof to make sure - is there a wire from the telco part of the box going to each of these four terminals?

QUESTION THREE. You can see that the wire to the test jack has only two wires, red and green. But isn't this part of the connection to the rest of the house? After all, when you unplug the test jack, the phones in the house go dead. And if this is part of the connection to the rest of the house, why doesn't it have all four wires?

No terminals are mounted on the Line 2 side of the NID.

QUESTION FOUR. What will the phone company do with the network box to enable a second line? (Assuming they don't replace the box.) Will they put RGBY terminals on the Line 2 set of the box, and connect four wires to it?

QUESTION FIVE. Why have 4 terminals on the Line One side? Just to establish a spare connection? If a spare connection is needed for each line, should I run two wires out of the NID instead of just one?

My idea was to run the wire from the NID to a junction box in the attic, and then to jacks in a star configuration.

I bought the RCA TP039 junction box, which says "add up to 4 telephone extension lines". Shown here:

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Here are the installation instructions, which have confused me a bit:

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QUESTION SIX. There are two terminals for each wire color, and two in the top of each terminal. I'm assuming that I can put one wire of each color into each slot, for a total of four. Is this right?

QUESTION SEVEN. How should I connect the incoming wire? Should I insert the wires through one of the bottom slots on each terminal, or should I put the wire under the screw?

Many thanks for your advice.

[HorneTD]

Replies are in line.

spoon2001 wrote:

I would suggest that you eliminate that obsolete protector from your den's attic. The protector that is located in the Network Interface Device (NID) will perform better if it has a good ground connection. That ground connection must be made to the same Grounding Electrode System that protects your electrical power wiring and all other wire carried utilities that enter your home. If that is not clear then ask more questions.

It is likely that they would run four or six pair cable.

No. There present cable is two conductor or single pair. It has only two wires in it.

Each telephone line from the central office is carried by a single pair of wires. Additional wires are unnecessary.

They will only connect two wires or one pair for each additional telephone line that they provide.

If you are going to have just two lines then a single run of four conductor "JK" station wire will carry both lines.

That is correct.

Insert them in the slots. Do not use the screws as wire binding screws.

The wire from the telephone company should go first to your Network Interface Device (NID). You then run one cable that has sufficient pairs for all of your lines to your junction box or connecting block.

If there is any likelihood of your having more than four telephones in your home you should consider buying a punch down block and an inexpensive punch down tool. The ones they sell at my local home depots are the 66M type that take up to fifty pairs of wires. Each set of post on the block will except two wires. There are four position each level (horizontal row) of the block. These are called combs. You bring the pairs from the Network Interface device to the post on the left side of the block. You then use short lengths of wire (jumpers) to connect those post to sufficient rows below them so that each interior jack will have it's own set of rows. You connect the wires from each jack to a single row on the right side. since the pairs of post on the right and left side of each comb are isolated from each other electrically you connect the jack wiring to the NID wiring by using bridging clips that you purchased with the 66M block. If your box store does not sell these parts most electrical supply houses do or can order one for you. The finished effect makes a very neat job that allows you to disconnect the inside jacks from the NID one at a time in order to troubleshoot the inside wiring by just removing the bridging clips. You can also deprive any jack of service by opening that jacks bridging clips. Pictures of the parts and tool can be found here.

picture of an installed block can be found here. > Many thanks for your advice. >

Your Welcome

-- Tom H

[chuck yerkes]

Typically line 1 is R/G and Line 2 is B/Y. The newer wiring uses the blues and oranges (I forget), but I'm doubting you have newer wiring.

There's also more and more an option of additional lines running over VOIP - over your Internet connection. Which can also be in any area code you want (eg. give a relative a local number to call which rings your phone 1000 miles away).

If you're pulling wires, pull CAT5. Always. Phone wire is just moot. CAT 5 has 4 pairs. It can be Ethernet + 2 phones or various combinations of things.

I break it out inside the wall to my QuickPort jacks. There's never a reason to pull 2 pair wire when you can pull 4 pair.

[avoidspam]

What do you consider "newer wiring" ?

Our last house was built in 1975 and it was wired with red-green, black-yellow, blue-white w/blue stripe, orange-white with orange stripe, and brown-white with brown stripe wiring.

[chuck yerkes]

I'm a bit ruined. I grew up in houses built in the 40s and late 50s. I lived for a long time in a house built in 1760, my dad has a house from

1860 and my current house is from 1994. Except for this last, god knows when the wiring went in.

I've found the red/green/yellow/black in houses build in the 50s, but I still found it in houses from the late 70s.

So I suppose the changeover occured around then. I was thinking it was an 80s thing (I ran a lot of extra phone lines for friends and my parents friends then and just never ran into the blue/bw & o/ow stuff much).

I *do* know that where I am now, in the mid '90s, the "best practice" is (finally) to "home run" all wiring. Annoyingly my present house has phone wires chained together. As I slowly cut holes to run new wires (coax and multiple cat5) I get to fix this, er, "feature" and run all the phone to a punchdown in the crawl space.