Uniden 8866 2 line phone system

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 17, 2006 Posts: 9

For the last 6 months I had only one Vonage line. The line seemed to work ok. Last week I added another line. The new line that was added was supposed to be ported to my land line. Some how the land line got disconnected before the switchover, (Going through a divorce and hateful soon to be ex had all utilities turned off.)Needless to say Vonage could not port the line

I needed that number bad (had it for 20 years) so I called the local telephone and reconnected the service with the old number.

I had bought a Uniden 8866 2 line phone system for the Vonage lines. Seemed to work ok whit two Vonage lines. Now since I have the Vonage line and the land line plugged into the Uniden it ****. Every time I try to make a call on the Vonage line, all I hear on the line is fast busy signal. I have done all the Vonage stuff (reboot) and it still does not work. I waited on hold for Vonage Tech support for 1.5 hours last night and just gave up at 1AM Any suggestions as to which 2-line phone works well with both Vonage and (local land line) Sprint?? I hate to spend more money, but I really need both lines on one phone unit.

Confused Bob in Texas

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 10:03 am Post subject:

Whoa, dude!!! Unplug that Vonage box immediately!! It sounds like you've got your wires crossed and have the Vonage adapter and land line connected directly together via the Uniden phone! You're going to fry it that way.

Okay, now what we've got that out of the way... here's what's happening:

There's 2 jacks on the back of the Uniden base: Line 2 and Line 1/2. I'm willing to bet that the phone wires you're using are 4-conductor wires. While this is normally desirable to use when doing 2-lines, it's exactly what you don't want when using 2 lines from different sources. So, you have 2 options. 1) get a 2-line splitter. This isn't a simple Y adapter, the one you want will have designations for line 1 & 2, like this:
[IMG]http://us.st11.yimg.com/store1.yimg.com/I/trianglecables-site_1888_34508390[/img]

You'd plug this into the Line 1/2 jack of the Uniden phone and ONLY plug in one phone line to it... then plug the second line into the Line 2 jack of the Uniden.

OR

Get phone wires that only have 2 conductors in them and make sure that these are what you use between the wall jack to the Uniden base and from the Vonage adapter to the Uniden base.

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 17, 2006 Posts: 9

Nothing like throwing away a couple of hundred dollars. Just got off the phone with Uniden and they said the TRU 8866 can't be a mis match of VoIP and a regular land line. Both line either have to be VoIP or land lines. Uniden rep said she did not know of any other phone manfuacture that could help me. Very nice people at Uniden

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 10:30 am Post subject:

rglosson wrote:

Nothing like throwing away a couple of hundred dollars. Just got off the phone with Uniden and they said the TRU 8866 can't be a mis match of VoIP and a regular land line. Both line either have to be VoIP or land lines. Uniden rep said she did not know of any other phone manfuacture that could help me. Very nice people at Uniden

Nice, but not diagnosing the situation properly.

A Vonage line, once it comes out of the Vonage adapter, **IS** a landline, or the equivalent at least. The Uniden rep obviously doesn't know how Vonage works, for which she can be forgiven, and it is true that no phone I've ever heard of could handle a true VoIP line (as in, plug in an RJ45 cable and provide SIP credentials over Ethernet) and a Landline (as in, plug in an RJ11 and get an analog line) on the same unit.

However, your landline and Vonage are both RJ11 connections.

Does your Uniden have a LINE1 and a LINE2 jack? If so:

1. Run an RJ11 patch cable from your landline jack to the LINE1 jack on the Uniden.
2. Run an RJ11 patch cable directly from the Vonage adapter's PHONE port to the LINE2 jack on the Uniden.

If not, go out and get a 2-line splitter (that can take two single lines in and combine them into a single jack) at Radio Shack or wherever, and plug it into the back of your Uniden and follow steps 1 and 2 again.

Using standard wiring, Line 1 occupies the middle two wires of a standard jack (red and green), and Line 2 occupies the outer two wires (yellow and black).

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 10:37 am Post subject:

rglosson wrote:

Nothing like throwing away a couple of hundred dollars. Just got off the phone with Uniden and they said the TRU 8866 can't be a mis match of VoIP and a regular land line. Both line either have to be VoIP or land lines. Uniden rep said she did not know of any other phone manfuacture that could help me. Very nice people at Uniden

Um...did you bother to read what I posted? What you're doing would cause a problem regardless of VoIP or not if the lines were coming from two different sources. The Uniden Tru-8866 is a great phone and there's many here who use them with Vonage and land lines simultaneously. Similarly, I have 2-line phones throughout my house and have had to run each phone line as an individual pair to prevent the voltage from one line interfering with another.

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 17, 2006 Posts: 9

I was just a little fast on the draw with my second post. I am headed to Radio Shack to get the plug you suggested. Thanks for the info

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 11:06 am Post subject:

Do let us know how that works out for you. It should do the trick. You're wanting an adapter which only has 2 conductors inside the L1 and L2 jacks... There are some adapters out there which do something like this:

L1/L2 L2/L1 L1/L2 which don't separate out the lines and won't help you with what you're trying to accomplish. They'll also have 4 conductors inside each jack.

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 11:15 am Post subject:

Actually, I just looked up the owner's manual on that phone. You already should have two jacks, labeled TEL LINE 1/2 and TEL LINE 2

Plug a standard RJ11 cable from your wall jack with regular telephone service into TEL LINE 1/2, this will be "line 1" of your phone.

Plug a standard RJ11 from your Vonage adapter into TEL LINE 2, this will be "line 2" of your phone.

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 11:25 am Post subject:

NateHoy wrote:

Actually, I just looked up the owner's manual on that phone. You already should have two jacks, labeled TEL LINE 1/2 and TEL LINE 2

Plug a standard RJ11 cable from your wall jack with regular telephone service into TEL LINE 1/2, this will be "line 1" of your phone.

Plug a standard RJ11 from your Vonage adapter into TEL LINE 2, this will be "line 2" of your phone.

BUT, that's where he's running into problems. It sounds like the line 2 jack is looped through (inside the phone) to the line 2 pair on the Line 1/2 jack, which then goes out to the telco. The Vonage box sees this voltage and thinks a phone is taken off-hook and tries to provide a dial tone, then eventually times out with the fast busy. Separating the lines (with splitters or 2-conductor phone cable) will break this interconnection between Vonage & telco done inside the Uniden base.

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 11:34 am Post subject:

Gotcha. Sorry, missed that angle. Yes, a 2-line patch cable would solve that.