Inside wiring blowing my mind

Posts: 16 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Mar 31, 2005 Posts: 16

My inside wiring worked for 3 days, then stopped. That was two weeks ago. Without doing anything else, I plugged it in again this morning and it worked for about 10 minutes, then no dial tone again. Can someone please give me some insight as to what is going on? Do I have a short in the line?

Thanks.

Posts: 492 · Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 10:30 am Post subject:

Without being there, you're going to have to eliminate your wiring from Interconnection Box from where you disconnected the old PSTN line; you did disconnect the old PSTN line didn't you? From the box you have to check each and every phone jack, in sequence, in order to find out where the open or the short resides. I suggest you run down to Radio Shack a purchase a line test set. You install an oscillator on the line at the interconnection box and with the tester, plug it into each wall socket and verify that the signal is reaching that point. You should be able to narrow the bad section of wire and replace it. You might even consider hiring an electrician.

Posts: 16 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Mar 31, 2005 Posts: 16

Thanks for the reply. I did disconnect from the telco, then I plugged the linksys into the wall and that is when it worked for 3 days. I'll see if I can find the testing kit at Radio Shack. Not quite to the point I want to hire an electrician yet.

Posts: 112 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jan 17, 2005 Posts: 112

I had problems with my house wiring.

I just gave up on it and got wireless phones that had extension phones.

Uniden 2.4ghz at Costco. 1 main unit, 3 extensions, 99.00

Stop killing yourself. I only have one single point of failure if my phone stops working....I dont have to play around with wires and so forth.

my .02

Posts: 39 · Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2005 10:37 pm Post subject: Phone Co has more juice

Your TA has much less ability to deal with line faults that the phone co's equipment. If your wires are not all properly terminated your TA may be cutting off the line to protect its circuits.
A line tester may help locate any problems; it will also tell you if your connection from the TA to the wall must be reversed. Reversed polarity will work with some phones, but really mess with others.

Posts: 39 · Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2005 11:23 pm Post subject: Also check your REN

Check the ringer equivalency number (REN) that your TA can support. My PAP2 supports 5.0 REN. This means that the sum of the REN from all phones on the circuit cannot exceed 5.0. If it does, I will be overloading my TA.
You can find the REN for most phones on the back or bottom near the UL symbol or Serial number.

Posts: 16 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Mar 31, 2005 Posts: 16

PhoneEar,

thanks for the reply. I have a line tester. Currently when I plug it into a wall jack I get nothing. If there is no power going to the inside wires should I still be getting a light? If I plug into my router I get a red light (indicates reversed polarity?). When I plug it into my standalone caller ID box (which is plugged into the router) I get a green light. What is the significance of this? Don't think REN is an issue because there are only two phones plugged in and I have tried it with one phone.

Thanks again.

Posts: 3198 · Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 9:38 am Post subject:

as far as reversed polarity, this was posted and discussed two days ago and has links to yet more posts:
http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic5183.html