I'm trying to replace my phone jack because the old one broke.

My phone jack is confusing, though! It's not like the ones that webpages show:

http://www.rd.com/content/openConten...ontentId=19597

As I understand it, a phone line involves 2 wires. Most phone jacks will have 4 wires connected to them, so that it can support 2 phone lines.

But my phone jack has 8 wires!

And when I disconnected all the wires from my old phone jack, all the other phone jacks in my apartment went dead.

Does anyone know what I'm dealing with here? Perhaps this phone jack sits between the NID and all the other phone jacks, and 4 of these wires are "incoming" while the other 4 are "outgoing"?

They also have weird colors. 4 of them are the standard red, green, black, yellow that I would expect. But the other 4 are red, orange with red stripes, green with red stripes, and red with black stripes. What do these colors mean?

 

Okay, I figured out what's going on -

The green/red wire is the incoming green wire.
The orange/red wire is the incoming red wire.

Then the real green and red wires are the outgoing ones that go to the other phone jacks in the apartment. They need to be connected to the incoming green/red wires in order for the other phone jacks to function.

But now I have a new problem: My dialtone sounds all "rusty"! I think I connected the wires right but it still sounds rusty... any ideas what I did wrong?

 

rusty= static?
if you didn't have it before and do now

static= poor connection (usually)

 

It's not exactly static. I can hear a constant... "f sharp below middle C" on the line from the moment I pick up the phone, whether the dialtone is sounding or not.

The wires seem connected fine as far as I can tell.

 

The technician from the phone company just fixed it for me (and I'm out $38.50 CAD).

Because of the confusing wire color coding, I couldn't figure out which wires went where so I just kept trying different combinations until I got a dialtone. But I had attached a "ground wire" or something, which was the wrong wire, but would give a (bad quality) dialtone.

If I had attached the correct wire, it would have worked fine.

 

You should have looked at the other end of the wire to see how they were attached.

 

38.50 is cheap , would have cost you twice that for me to fix it .

 

I have been in the telecom industry for 14 years now. I will show you how to match the Red, Green, Yellow and Black wires to the wires with the white stripe.

White/Blue wire to the Green wire terminal on wall jack
Blue/White wire to the Red wire terminal on wall jack
White/Orange wire to the Black wire terminal on wall jack
Orange/White wire to the Yellow wire terminal on wall jack
White/Green wire to Blue wire terminal on wall jack
Green/White wire to White wire terminal on wall jack

I hope this helps. Analog phone signal is typically run over the White/Blue (Green) and Blue/White (Red) wires (center pair).

good luck - hope this helps.
Jim

 

please don't tell me it took you 14 years to figure that one out.. ha... hey Mango, we got us a real telephone man here.. always good to have another...

 

You have a LADY telephone tec here. (There are a few of us)
The colors you mentioned blue/blue white, orange/orange white, etc have nothing to do with the colors he mentioned. With those strange colors he mentioned, you would almost certainly have to use a butt set and possibly a buzzer to figure out whats connected. $38.50 is real cheap. My company would charge $145.00 for the first HALF HOUR.

 

true, the colors are off the wall, and a butt set would be convenient.. but a tech wouldn't need one.. a good ol short would suffice.. as to a LADY tech, "never heard of one"... there are female tech's, but NO lady tech's.. and.. sorry to say, "I never met a good one of those either"... not to say there isn't one out there... somewhere...

 

There are three "lady techs" in my crew. Two are installers and one is a cable splicer. All are top notch techs. The cable splicer works trouble and does great splicing work. The two installers did line work for over twenty years before going into installation and are the best climbers on hooks I have ever seen.

 

good for you... I stick to my guns.. Ladies are not techs... female techs, girl techs.. but NOT lady techs! where I was raised, Ladies don't where tools, splice cables, get in trenches, crawl under houses, climb poles, or any of the other tecky crap we have to do... females do, girls do, but NOT A LADY... and, I'm not saying some of the finest installers, technicians, splicers, co people, line assigners, etc. aren't female.. I've met a lot of really good ones over the years.. but..... I'd get knocked on my butt if I called them a lady to their face...

 

I bought Wifey a Tshirt with the Bell emblem in the center and TELEPHONE WOMAN around the sides

I had one that Said TELEPHONE MAN

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence. Believe it or not, both my husband and I consider me a LADY in every way shape and form. Just because I don't wear high heels, makeup and nylons, does not mean I am not a lady.

I happen to like climbing poles, shooting trouble, etc. and am pretty darn good at it. If I do say so, far better than half the male tecs I work with. I also get fantastic reviews from the customers. If there's a problem customer, guess who they send? Me.
Take your chauvinistic attitute and stuff it, the world doesn't need any more simple minded men like you.

A LADY TECH

 

I'm about as far from a chauvinist as you can be.. I just don't believe LADIES do this type work.. and one with your mouth, obviously hasn't taken a good look at herself lately, because LADIES don't talk the way you do... so, get a life.." woman"

 

Just looking to figure out how to connect my son's phone wires as it has been a while since I have done that and his lines are from early 70's. Thanks for the helpful info. I'm a lady from West Texas who has an undergraduate degree in English and master's in library science. I'm retired from education after 30 years and fortunately inherited some of my father's mechanical abilties. I am 56 but could pass for under 45, and my husband loves the fact that I am a lady yet not intimidated when it comes to fixing something mechanical or technical. No one can believe by looking at me that I know how and will do many of the things a man can do. Now, on to my son's next remodel job of tearing out tile around the tub and replacing the cement board and new tile. After that, we'll start on replacing all electrical outlets and switches, light fixtures, etc., etc. May have more questions to ask in the process. BTW, frhrwa, the word is "wear" not "where" in your June 4 post.

 

for some reason, I can't find where you figure "wear" should be? I believe to "wear", is to wear clothes or something... oh, and by the way... go up and take a look at your girlbuilder's spelling of "tech".... go figure?

 

The correct word should be "wear".

Now (all of you) please stop the childish behavior, or I will have a moderator from this forum close this thread.

 

you are correct, my oversight.