How to properly wire an alarm for use with Vonage

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

zaphod_fl wrote:

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

Not sure what 'a tone set' is. I am going to assume a dial tone, which I dont have. If I am wrong, please clarify,

Posts: 13 · Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 8:13 am Post subject: Re: Apartment Static

jessebs wrote:

zaphod_fl wrote:

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

Not sure what 'a tone set' is. I am going to assume a dial tone, which I dont have. If I am wrong, please clarify,

A "Tone Set" is a device that has a box you clip on one side of a wire... You go to the other side of a 'rats nest' of wires and use a 'pickup' to look for a tone across a specific wire. It would let you find your specific wire set.

As for finding the cause of the static... that may be a needle in a haystack... It sounds like you are getting crosstalk from someplace... depending on the state of the demarc it could be anything. Sorry I can't be more specific.

Do you have a multimeter? If so, disconnect the vonage adapter and look for voltage and current on the line.

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

I ended up using Yellow/Black instead of Red Green using this as slight guidence: http://www.dslreports.com/faq/1738

I got 2 3way jacks, 2couplers, and 2 small patch cables, so for all practical purposes, vonage is carried over the 2nd phone line in the apartment. Works flawlessly, and I'm not as worried about the telco sending current through the lines.

Posts: 13 · Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 8:29 am Post subject:

Good News!

Sometimes it just takes a bit of 'creative wiring'.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 26, 2007 Posts: 3

Ok have everything hooked up with the Leviton 1x7 all phones work and all. Main question is this, Does anyone know of good settings for using a alarm system with vonage, right now they have me set at this:

First they tried this Report Format 4/2 1900/1400
that didn't go well then changed me to:

Report Format 4/2 1800/2300
4/2 Pulse Rate 20pps

was working good till i rewired the whole house with cat5. Phone lines seem cleaner now. but not sure why the alarm system is acting up when it calls in.

Any ideas? Also the alarm monitoring i use don't use SIA!

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 26, 2007 Posts: 3

This is a update for all.

Vonage working with a Powermax+ System using alarmrelay.com.

I figured what the heck, So i redone every phone wire in the house with cat5 and all straight runs, No breaks in the lines. all running to a Leviton 1x7 and the main running to the vonage device.

If i used the RJ31X terminals and wired it to a RJ45 for the 1x7 problems started there.

Dishnetwork when testing it for calling in gave phone line issues but all the phones seem fine. so after tinkering for hours on this. decided Well maybe since from the 1x7 to the alarm system was to long of a run. which came out to be about 40ft. seems stupid if that is the problem. So decided to use the phone jack in the alarm system and run to the 1x7 main terminals.

Now both of my dishnetworks call in with no problems doing testing on those. But the alarm system was still going nuts with wrong codes. called the alarm monitoring company got techs on the phone they had me use a different 800 number for it to call to. and also changed my format to this:
Was: 4/2 1800 2300
20pps

Now:
Contact ID
20pps

Seems to be working fine now. Not sure if i want to try it with the RJ31X since i seen that dishnetwork had problems dialing in going that route. Also even could not get any fax's when it was in that mode.

So overall this is what i came up with, Vonage does not work that great with anything that is modem based as in fax's via modem dishnetwork call in from the box's using a Leviton 1x7 with the RJ31X But without using the RJ31X all is fine now. Still using the punchdown blocks on there just not using the switch. Also all the cat5's are clean run and not near any power cords.

So if you are thinking about a alarm system via vonage it may work and it may not work and at times off and on. Best advice on this is go via cell or a landline only for the alarm system looking into that now.

abaldish wrote:

Ok have everything hooked up with the Leviton 1x7 all phones work and all. Main question is this, Does anyone know of good settings for using a alarm system with vonage, right now they have me set at this:

First they tried this Report Format 4/2 1900/1400
that didn't go well then changed me to:

Report Format 4/2 1800/2300
4/2 Pulse Rate 20pps

was working good till i rewired the whole house with cat5. Phone lines seem cleaner now. but not sure why the alarm system is acting up when it calls in.

Any ideas? Also the alarm monitoring i use don't use SIA!

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 12, 2008 Posts: 1

I found your post and started to read until I encountered an absolutely false statement. At that point, I decided that other information I am not sure of may not be correct. Too bad. Looks like you put a lot into it and the photos make it appear as if you are knowledgeable and competent.
FOR THE RECORD, CAT 3 BY DEFINITION IS TWISTED PAIR AND IS CAPABLE OF CARRYING BOTH VOICE AND DATA. THE TWIST RATE IS LESS THAN CAT 5 SO THE data rate is limited to less than CAT 5 rates. We used to use it all the time until CAT 5 became the norm (now CAT 5e and some CAT 6.) CAT 3 uses a similar coding scheme to that of CAT 5.

Twisted pair has been the standard of the telephone industry for many years. Even CAT 1 which is no longer recognized used twists but the specs are not high enough for decent data transmission.

All CAT 3 is twisted pair and is designed to reliably carry data up to 10 Mbit/s, with a possible bandwidth of 16 MHz. I have seen it used for 100Mbit/s successfully but that is not spec and could prove to be unreliable and error prone.

As you can see, CAT 3 specs are well within the necessary specs to handle VONAGE

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 03, 2008 Posts: 3

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