Don't understand 2-conductor Phone cord

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 04, 2009 Posts: 2

I hope someone can help me with this one.
I had no idea about this 2-conductor/4-conductor phone cord until after receiving the V-portal adapter yesterday. Never even heard of 2-conductor! Our house has always been 4-condutor now that I understand what it is and took a look. I have tons of different cords laying around and they are all 4-conductor cords. What is the big deal and what if I can't find any 2 conductor??
Thanks,

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 04, 2009 Posts: 2

It didn't matter one bit. Not sure why a big deal is made of it?!
Made my first calls and they were clear as a bell Smile

Now I just need to figure out how to set the correct time on this LCD!

Posts: 656 · Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2009 6:47 pm Post subject:

It only matters if you are going to have 2 phone numbers on the V-Portal. If you use a 4 pin, the line will bleed over to the other which can keep the line off hook, cause wrong line to ring or be dialed from and a few other things. If you only have 1 line and a single line phone, it is OK.

The time is not done on the device through any user setting. It is based upon the time zone your device is provisioned for. If the time zone is incorrect in the device provisioning, tech support can change it for you. If the time is completely wrong(not related to time zone difference) then something on your end such as a router, firewall or ISP is preventing the NTP protocol from communicating which is what is used to set the time.

Posts: 227 · Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 6:26 pm Post subject:

If you're using a Vonage VDV21 device, and if you're using its Phone-1 jack, then the type of cord may matter, whether or not you're using its Phone-2 jack.

A 4-conductor jack may be wired with a single phone line connected to its two center pins. This wiring arrangement is called RJ-11 (registered jack eleven).

The same jack may also be wired with two phone lines: line 1 connected to the two center pins as before, but line 2 is connected to the two outer pins. This wiring arrangement is called RJ-14 and is used to deliver two lines to a two-line phone.

The Vonage VDV21 can support two lines. On this device, the jack labeled Phone-1 is wired as an RJ-14 two-line jack. It delivers both of the two possible lines. (The Phone-2 jack is an RJ-11 and delivers only the second line, on the two center pins.) If you plug a 4-conductor cord into the Phone-1 jack, you are connecting the cord to both of the line circuits. That may be okay, but it depends on what's on the other end of your cord. If you plug the cord into your house wiring, and if you're using the second pair of wires in your house for some other service (such as delivering DSL to your modem, for example) you'll have a problem. Other types of problems occur if your phone uses the second pair to deliver power to its lighted dial. (If you have a very old phone that was intended to be used with a 1A-2 key telephone system, then the second pair is used to control the busy lamp and hold circuits.)

All of this makes it easy to use two Vonage lines on a two-line telephone set. But it also makes it easy to cause interference if something other than the Vonage second line is using the other pair of conductors. Even if your Vonage service provides only one line, your device will play an error message if you try to use the other voice circuit.

Unless you actually want the capabilities offered by an RJ-14 jack delivering both voice lines to one cord, you're better off using a two-conductor cord with the Phone-1 jack.

Posts: 51 · Full Forum Member Joined: Nov 02, 2008 Posts: 51

If you have an HP Fax machine connected by an RJ splitter off the TA with the phone going to one port and the fax machine going to the other you will need a 2 wire patch cord from the TA to the splitter. I have never seen a 2 wire splitter and in any case it doesn't matter. Just plug the patch cord into the splitter and both phone/fax wires into the other side of the splitter. If you use a 4 wire patch cord or a 'hard' splitter that is, a splitter with an M plug directly into the TA w/o patch cord, the fax machine won't work. So in short you need an RJ spllitter that's F(emale) on all three ports.