How to properly wire an alarm for use with Vonage

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 16, 2005 Posts: 6

OK, this thread is basically for those who have their Vonage adapter driving all the phone jacks in their home, right? I have a different setup. I just have one expandable cordless system hooked to my Vonage adapter, so I didn't bother hooking it up to my house jacks.

But I still want to hook up the Vonage to my alarm. So I bought one of those "extend-a-jack" things and hooked that up to my adapter via a splitter. I put the receiving end in the closet with the alarm. After comfirmig that the "extend-a-jack" thing had a dial tone, I plugged a phone cord into it with the other end of the cord spliced open so I could hook it up to the alarm. I understand is that in a phone cord with 4 wires, only two of the wires (red & green) are used in a one-line system. So I just need to know which wire to hook to which terminal on the alarm.

I currently have the Green wire hooked to "T" (Tip) and the Red wire hooked to "R," (Ring) which are under the "phone line" label. Is that right, or do I have them backwards? Then what do I do with the "T1" and "R1" terminals, which are under the lable "premesis phones"? I don't expect the alarm to cutoff the other phones on the premesis, since they are not wired. I just need to know what I need to do with these terminals. Do I leave them empty? Do I run a jumper between them to complete a circuit?

Thanks,
Mike

Posts: 2251 · Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 10:43 pm Post subject:

Hi Mike:

This is more of an informative sticky post, you might have better luck at a reply if you started a dedicated thread for your issue.

Smile

Posts: 5 · Posted: Sat Sep 23, 2006 2:16 pm Post subject:

Great post, as I love to tinker with things. There is another option available. In my situation with my alarm company, for an additional $5/month to the monitoring fee, I have a dedicated cellular hookup for my alarm system. Eliminates the worry of asking yourself, "Did I do this right?" If the alarm company needs to remotely program upgrades to the system, it provides for seamless service also.

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 28, 2006 Posts: 1

I have a Unicom 12 port punch down that allows 12 phones with up to 4 lines per phone. It DOES NOT have a security jack. What does the wiring look like from my alarm to my punchdown in this situation and will it work? Also, I am assuming that the jack in the Vonage unit that replaces my telco, is an RJ11? If so, how do I wire cat5 to an RJ11? I am then assuming that if I have only one phone line that I just connect the blue/blue white pair at the input of my punchdown, from the Vonage unit?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 07, 2006 Posts: 13

This security provider works with your existing alarm system and does not depend on a traditional phone line. Uses braodband, cellular and phone lines to connect back to their monitoring center. The cool thing is that all three communication paths are redundant and monitored - the sytem actually sends you and email or SMS if any one or all of the three paths are disconnected. Another cool feature is the ability to remotely control and monitor your alarm system via the web or your cell phone. The price is competitive to what I was paying ADT before - in fact a bit cheaper.

Check it our - http://ucontrol.com.

Posts: 13

I am a new Vonage customer and I have a Motorola VT 2142. I have it connected to the RJ 31X and the line is siezed properly by the Alarm (I see it having dialed on the Vonage site.) What happens now is it does not send the information. When I put a volt meter on the line it drops from 48V to 3.3V. Picking up a regular phone drops it from 48V to 7.3V. What am I missing? I am about to rewire the whole shooting match according to this thread, but other than that has anyone else had the same problem with the VT 2142?

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 22, 2007 Posts: 4

From reading the post, I think I have a pretty good understanding of what is happening. I have a couple of questions though.

First, I am in an apartment complex and do not want to rewire. The RJ-31x terminal connected to the unmonitored alarm system is directly connected to a wall phone jack, and the rest are daisy chained along the way. Is it OK to just disconnect the wires going to the RJ-31x terminals?

Also, I have been unable to locate the telco entry point, but from the look of it, it looks like all connection to the outside world is through the alarm system. The lines are currently dead (no dial tone, no noise on buttons), so if I just disconnect the RJ-31x terminals, will that cut any possibility of power to the line?

I ask this because when I plug in my VTA-VD adapter, I can hear the dial tone on each outlet, but there is static in the system.

Posts: 13

jessebs wrote:

From reading the post, I think I have a pretty good understanding of what is happening. I have a couple of questions though.

First, I am in an apartment complex and do not want to rewire. The RJ-31x terminal connected to the unmonitored alarm system is directly connected to a wall phone jack, and the rest are daisy chained along the way. Is it OK to just disconnect the wires going to the RJ-31x terminals?

Also, I have been unable to locate the telco entry point, but from the look of it, it looks like all connection to the outside world is through the alarm system. The lines are currently dead (no dial tone, no noise on buttons), so if I just disconnect the RJ-31x terminals, will that cut any possibility of power to the line?

I ask this because when I plug in my VTA-VD adapter, I can hear the dial tone on each outlet, but there is static in the system.

If you can't get to the Dmarc in an apartment I think you will always have trouble using the stock wiring. You can try the yellow/black pair because that is rarely used.

The way the 31x is wired is to the dmarc to interrupt the signal from the phone company and your phones (so it can seize the line). This means that disconnecting the RJ31X at your alarm won't do anything but completely interrupt the circuit. You need to a) get to the dmarc or b) rewire using the yellow / black pair in your apartment.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 22, 2007 Posts: 4

Quote:

This means that disconnecting the RJ31X at your alarm won't do anything but completely interrupt the circuit.

Thanks, I was confused. The good news is I found the Dmark. The bad news is that its a tangled mess of unmarked wires for 20 apartments. I will try to get through it.

Is there any other possible cause of the static?

Thanks

Posts: 13 · Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2007 9:53 pm Post subject: Re: Apartment Static

jessebs wrote:

Quote:

This means that disconnecting the RJ31X at your alarm won't do anything but completely interrupt the circuit.

Thanks, I was confused. The good news is I found the Dmark. The bad news is that its a tangled mess of unmarked wires for 20 apartments. I will try to get through it.

Is there any other possible cause of the static?

Thanks

probably the "Tangled mess of wires". Do you have a tone set? You can trace it that way.