Short in phone line (?)


  #1  
Old 07-05-01, 09:43 AM
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We had new phone service established at our new residence and it worked fine for a few days. We then plugged in our cordless phone and apparently it shorted out the phone line. Now we don't get a dial tone and if I dial the number from outside, I get a busy signal. The helpdesk at Verizon said any powered phone (like a cordless phone or answering machine) could short the line. They said I should plug in the cordless phone to the power outlet first and let it charge up, then plug the phone line up. In the meantime, they said to plug a "normal" phone in to reset the line. I tried that but it didn't work. Is there another way to reset the line?
 
  #2  
Old 07-05-01, 10:00 AM
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If the phone wiring inside the house belongs to you, the phone company normally has a test jack under an access door on the protector block where the phone cable is terminated and your wiring begins. If you find that jack, you unplug the little jumper and plug a phone (not cordless, just a plain old telephone) into it. If it works, the problem is in your house, if it doesn't, either your test phone is bad or the phone company cable is bad. If you listen to the test phone you should hear dial tone, not a bunch of hum or static.
 
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Old 07-05-01, 10:07 AM
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Yes, Verizon mentioned the test box, but I couldn't find it where they said it would be. When I had called them back, they said if we had a home older than 25 years, we might not have a test box. Ours is 32 years.
 
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Old 07-06-01, 10:52 AM
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A house of that age should have overhead wiring. Go outside and follow the phone line to where it enters the house. Go inside and you will find the point of entry. There should be a junction at this point. Determine which of the wires are the ones coming from outside. Disconnect them from the junction, temporarily connect a phne jack to them, and plug in a phone.

 
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Old 07-06-01, 08:49 PM
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Keep in mind that it takes several minutes (or more) for your dial tone to return once you clear your short. The time depends on the type of telephone switch your telco uses.

I have some real doubts about what Verizon is telling you regarding your phone being the cause -- if it is indeed the cause then it's defective -- take it back and get another one. There is nothing special about cordless phones or answering machines as far as the network is concerned.Try it at a neighbor's house before you return it.

Also, in older homes with protector blocks the block itself could be the trouble. Some of them have overvoltage protection in them that will open up one or both sides of your line when blown. Not much you can do about it today as they are so old -- Verizon should be more than happy to come out and install an up to date network interface on the outside of your home. You'll have to wire to it, but it's much better than the old protector blocks.

Be careful when doing your wiring -- normally there's -48 VDC present on the line and should a call come in while your in contact with the conductors you'll feel a nice jolt of ringing current.

If you're certian that you've got everything right, insist that Verizon check your line to see if it is permanently out of service in the switch. They can do this remotely without having to come to your home.

 
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Old 07-10-01, 05:34 AM
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I appreciate the feedback. I was able to find the NID in the basement. (We just moved into the house so I'm not sure where everything is yet.) I can plug a phone into the NID and it works fine, so the phone company is off the hook (so to speak). The problem is with the wiring in the house itself.

I'm pretty sure Verizon is correct about the cordless phone or answering machine, because the lines were working fine for several days until we unpacked our cordless and plugged them in. Shortly after that the lines quit working -- probably not a coincidence. After unplugging everything and waiting several hours, I plugged in a regular phone to no avail.

Leaving the phone plugged into the NID works fine. If I reconnect the jumper and plug the phone into a wall outlet (even after waiting several hours), I don't get a dial tone, and if I try to call the phone, I get a busy signal. Fortunately, the previous owners haven't disconnected their second phone line so I can use that (either from the NID or from a wall outlet) to try calling our primary line.

Does this sound like an electrician should look at it?
 
  #7  
Old 07-10-01, 06:37 AM
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I don't get a dial tone, and if I try to call the phone, I get a busy signal.
If you don't get a dial tone, I'm not sure I understand how you get a busy signal. Both of these call progress tones require the same wiring. When you say "busy", do you mean a real busy tone (like your mom is on the phone when you call), or a reorder tone (sometimes called "fast busy") or an intercept tone (like the European ambulance).
 
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Old 07-10-01, 07:51 AM
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What is the "NID" and does it have an internal jack into which you can plug a phone? "I re-connect jumper"?-could you be more specific-how many house cables terminate at the NID?Please determine the # of wall jacks inside the house and the # of cables at the NID(service)-this may be a clue to the wiring arrangement. Thanks
 
  #9  
Old 07-10-01, 09:46 AM
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Hey Slug,
Sounds like you are getting alot of help here, let me add my two cents worth. First I don't think your phones had much to do with you problem, but unhook all of them. As you do this, look into the female jacks in the walls and make sure there are no wires touching each other inside. Ensure there isn't any debris in the jacks that may be shorting the wires out. Having done this, go back to your NID.
Once there, check the signal as you did before, to ensure you have a good signal. Now how many phone jacks do you have in your house? How many leads do you have leaving your NID? Is there one line for each jack? This would be nice, but probally not likely.
Disconnect all the lines leaving your NID, test the signal. Hook up one line, test your signal. Still good? Hook up another line, test signal? Now bad? This is the branch that has the problem.
Now you will have to determine which jacks are on this bad branch. Having done this, go around and pull all of them out of the wall and check the wiring. Starting with the jack nearest to the NID, assuming it is the first in the branch. Make sure none of the wires are touching in the rear of jack and all are connected with the same color scheme (red to red, yellow to yellow, green to green, etc.).
Having done this, connect your wiring at the NID again, check signal...still bad. Go to first jack, disconnect wires. Plug phone into the jack and reconnect incoming lead, you should be able to get a dail tone at this jack. However, once you connect the outgoing line you will probally will loss the signal again. Keep moving down the line, one jack at a time you should be able to locate which jack is giving you problems. Usually one that has been bumped by a couch, table, bed or chest of drawers.
If you happen to make it all the way through and get all the jacks working again, start checking the extension wires you have hooked up to the the individual phones.
The main thing is to ensure you have a good phone to do the tests with.
 
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Old 07-10-01, 12:32 PM
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To answer a few questions.

1. From John Nelson re: dial tone/busy signal
If I plug a phone into a wall jack, I don't get a dial tone. While that phone is plugged in, I call it from my cell phone and I get a busy signal. It's a real busy tone as if someone is on the line (or the phone is off the hook).

2. From switchman re: NID
Network Interface Device. The gray box that connects my house wiring to the phone network. There are jumper cables (or whatever you call them) that make the actual connection between my wiring the phone network. The plugs are regular phone jack type plugs. If you take the plug out and put in your own phone, you're connected to the phone network w/o going through the wiring in your house. In my particular case, there are 5 of these plugs in the NID. One for each phone number in the house. I'm only interested in one of them since I only have one phone number, although as I mentioned earlier, one of the other plugs is still active from the previous owner.

When the plug is in (connecting the house to the phone company), and I use a wall jack, that's when I have the problem.

Trying2Help had some good suggestions that I hadn't looked at yet, like if any of the wires are touching.
 
  #11  
Old 07-10-01, 01:56 PM
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Correct me if I'm wrong---You have an NID for 5 service lines, each line a "Pair".---2 of the jack plugs in the NID are in service, your Tel# and the "old" Tel#--when you plug in the lead/jumper for your # you have "permanent signal".The lead you plug in must connect to the house cables and "splits"- one pair-the lead-connects to 2 or more pairs.You'll have to locate that connection and dis-connect one pair at a time. Just for my curiousity(?) how do you know which one of the % jack plugs in the NID is your line? Thanks
 
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Old 07-11-01, 08:51 AM
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Originally posted by switchman
Correct me if I'm wrong---You have an NID for 5 service lines, each line a "Pair".---2 of the jack plugs in the NID are in service, your Tel# and the "old" Tel#--when you plug in the lead/jumper for your # you have "permanent signal".
Correct. There are 5 jacks, 2 of which are in service. If by "permanent signal" you mean busy signal, then yes, you understand me correctly.

Originally posted by switchman
The lead you plug in must connect to the house cables and "splits"- one pair-the lead-connects to 2 or more pairs.You'll have to locate that connection and dis-connect one pair at a time.
I'm not sure I follow what you're saying.

Originally posted by switchman
Just for my curiousity(?) how do you know which one of the % jack plugs in the NID is your line? Thanks
The NID had labels (phone numbers) for each of the jacks. The one that was the home line for the previous owner (ie, not the one they used for business or faxes) is the line that's our home phone. I plugged a phone into it and called from another phone and it rang. When I plugged a phone into the other lines, it didn't ring (when calling our home number).
 
  #13  
Old 07-11-01, 09:44 AM
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Unhappy

Now I'm abit confused:

"We had new phone service established at our new residence and it worked fine for a few days. We then plugged in our cordless phone and apparently it shorted out the phone line. Now we don't get a dial tone and if I dial the number from outside, I get a busy signal."

Was all the phone jacks working before? Life was happy and all was going well? Or did your phone only work on one jack and now doesn't work on that jack or any other jack?

If there were five differant numbers previously assigned to this house, than each of these jacks had to be connected to differant incoming lines. One number per pair/two numbers per wire set coming into house.

I would still go back to my previous post and find the "good" signal. Figure out where it is lost and fix the problem. It is mostly a matter of ensuring good connections, no shorting and connecting the correct wires.
 
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Old 07-11-01, 10:45 AM
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To connect the house telephone system to the Telephone Company's system you plug a lead/jumper into a jack in the NID.The single pair in the lead (Tip and Ring) must connect ALL the pairs from the wall jacks to the NID.There is a connection where the pair in the plug-in lead goes to the kitchen wall jack AND the living-room wall jack AND the bed-room wall jack-that's what I mean by "spliting".Can you identify the cables from the house jacks at the service location-the basic cable is a 2-pair cable, and the number of cables?-may give a clue to how the system is wired. Thanks
 
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Old 07-12-01, 09:53 PM
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Hey guys -- you're all on the right track except save the TELCO some grief and use an ohm meter to find the short instead of continually connecting the bad line to the NID and then checking for dial tone at the various jacks with a telephone. Shorts of a few thousand ohms can cause a line to go 'Hi and Wet' -- with all the telephones disconnected (including modems, faxes etc -- don't forget alarm systems that use a dial-up connection) the circuit should measure 'infinite' across the pair when disconnected from the NID. Check for any jacks installed outside of the house. If there were 5 lines into this house at one time chances are that some of the wiring is on the outside of the house and could be pierced with a staple.

Also, canned air is great for blowing out debris in those RJ-11 telephone jacks.

I still have reservations that the cordless telephone caused all this trouble -- unless it was defective to begin with. That being the case the trouble would have cleared once the cordless was disconnected.

Once the short has been cleared go to Radio Shack or Home Depot and spend the $3 to $4 for a telephone line tester. The thing plugs into the RJ-11 phone jack and will ensure you've wired everything back together with proper polarity. Ordinary telephones don't care too much about polarity -- but a lot of other domestic products do.

Stephen
 
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Old 07-16-01, 05:23 AM
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Originally posted by Trying2Help
Now I'm abit confused:

"We had new phone service established at our new residence and it worked fine for a few days. We then plugged in our cordless phone and apparently it shorted out the phone line. Now we don't get a dial tone and if I dial the number from outside, I get a busy signal."

Was all the phone jacks working before? Life was happy and all was going well? Or did your phone only work on one jack and now doesn't work on that jack or any other jack?
Yes, life was happy. All the jacks in the house were working fine.

As a refresher, the NID has 5 plugs. 3 are non functional (disconnected). 1 is still active and is the previous owner's business line and is wired to one wall jack. It still works. The remaining plug in the NID is for my home phone and all the remaining wall jacks in the house are connected to it. None of them work, but all of them used to.
 
  #17  
Old 07-21-01, 03:07 PM
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OK -- you have two lines at your NID. The one for the previous owner's business still has dialtone - the other one is yours and doesn't have dialtone. To eliminate all of your wiring roll the two lines at the NID. If your jacks have dialtone and the business doesn't then the problem is in the NID or the central office. On the telco side of the NID there are some overcurrent devices between your wiring and the cable pair going to the central office. Usually, they open up and people dialing your number will get a ring no answer -- not a busy signal.

I understood from previous posts that you connected a regular telephone to you line at the NID and it worked but when you reconnected your house wiring to the NID you could not get dial tone from your jacks. Any chance that you could have tested on the previous resident's business line instead?

Might be worth starting at the beginning again -- plug a regular telephone into the NID jack that you believe to be your number. If you have dialtone, call someone and ask them to call you back on the number you think your on. (Better yet, call someone who has CallerId and ask them to tell you what number they see in their display. Make sure your call isn't blocked though) When you're sure that your on the right jack in the NID and you have dialtone, reconnect your house circuit to the NID. If you can, have someone call your number immediately after you connect to the NID. If they get a busy, you've got a short somewhere in your house wiring across the two wires that go to each telephone jack in your home. We're back to the 'divide and conquer' method.

If you find that you do not have dial at the NID with a regular phone call your telco. It's possible that they worked a disconnect order for some reason in error that affected your phone. Were that the case though callers to your number would get a vacant number recording instead of a busy signal. But it could happen and is more probable than your cordless being the original culprit.

Lot's of luck!
 
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Old 07-21-01, 04:11 PM
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If a regular phone works fine at the phone line entrance to the house, the most likely place for a short would be at a jack location. If you dial into the line from outside or another line and get a busy signal, then either the line is shorted or a phone is off the hook, if you dial in to the line the you get a regular dialing tone and no phone ring and no dial tone at that line, then the line has a broken connection.

Mosty likely the you have a series of jacks and the phone line wire goes to one jack and then onward to another. Any jack shorted will take out the whole line.

The first jack I would look for a short at is the one you plug the cordless phone into and then came the problem. What could have happened is the contact hair pins got bent when the phone was plugged in and shorted 2 contacts together. Telephone Jacks are not that expensive , I would start by replacing the jack that the cordless phone was first plugged into and see what happens. There may not necessaryly be a problem with your cordless phone, just a shorted jack.

I am assuming the problem started at the instant the cordless phone was firs plugged into a jack.

http://www.bell.ca/en/care/guide/wiring/

the above link is a wiring guide from my telephoen company it may be of some help.

The site mentioned bellow will be having an in depth telephone wiring /troubleshooting section in it, I just released the site to the public, the telephone section will be added ASAP.
 
 

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