Line Goes Dead After Home Wiring

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Sep 28, 2005 Posts: 6

I posted this in another thread, but I thought I might get some help faster if I started a new one.

I followed all of the home wiring directions and my lines are now dead and free of voltage. When I plug my PAP2 into a phone jack all of my phones get a dial tone and work. The problem is that the phones act as if they are off the hook. I can listen in on a phone and it gives a dial tone, then it gives a slow busy signal, then a fast busy signal and then the line goes dead. Somehow the system is not recognizing that I have hung up the phone, it still the thinks the phone is on. If I plug a single phone into the PAP2 it works fine and knows when I hang up. Anyone have any ideas on how to fix this problem???

Thanks in advance.

Posts: 282 · Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 9:06 pm Post subject:

This won't help you much, but I can tell you that if you are getting dial-tone when you go off-hook, the PAP2 does not think you have a phone off-hook. If you go off-hook and get dial-tone, and then stay off hook monitoring the dial-tone, getting a fast busy is normal.

As I said, I know this doesn't fully answer your question, but if you are getting dial-tone you don't have an off-hook condition.

Edit: I have a PAP2 as well, and when I go off-hook and get dial tone, the dial-tone will time out if I don't dial any digits in about 7 seconds giving treatment - first a regular busy, then a fast busy. This is just how it works - not unlike a telco line. If you don't break dial-tone with a DTMF tone, it thinks you left the phone off the hook and stops looking for dialed digits.

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Sep 28, 2005 Posts: 6

Thanks for the reply. It goes off hook even if I don't pick up the phone, that's the problem. If I plug the PAP2 into the phone jack and never pick up the phone, it does the same thing. If I listen in a minute or so after I have plugged it in, the line is dead. This is really weird, any help would be gratefully appreciated.

Posts: 282 · Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 10:14 pm Post subject:

Describe how you are connecting the PAP2 to your home wiring and how and when you are seeing dial-tone. You mention that you have dial-tone on all your phones - is this only for a minute before they are all ? If you provide some exact details of what you've done it will be easier for someone to respond with a solution.

I'm assuming that you have all your home wiring still connected together at either the Telco Network Interface or some other common point if you ever had dial-tone on all your lines, is that correct?

Posts: 55 · Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2005 9:53 am Post subject: Troubleshooting

It would also be useful to know how all your jacks are wired- standard home installs usually have each wire from the rooms run to a central location in an attic or basement then each wire is just twisted together to make connection. This twisted together isn't the most reliable or error-free junction.

If you have erratic issues with home wiring, look where all the lines run to - it could be a cross-connection issue or grounding as it sounds the PAP2 is responding to signals it isn't expecting on the line.

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Sep 28, 2005 Posts: 6

Thanks for asking about the way the phones are wired, it made me actually look at them. I unscrewed all of the jacks in the house and have come to the conclusion that the previous owners had 2 lines. Some of the jacks have 2 cables coming into them and others only have one cable coming in. Question: Do I need 4 wires hooked up to the jack or just 2 wires? They all have the blue, blue w/white, orange and orange w/white. I think is what I'm going to do is go around to all of the jacks and wire them the same exact way. I haven't been down in the crawl space to see if there is any main box that it all goes to, but when I do that, is there anything in particular that I should be looking for?

Thanks for the help guys.

Posts: 282 · Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2005 8:25 pm Post subject:

For each telephone line you need just two wires (one pair) - referred to as Tip and Ring. For your one line, the convention is to use Blue / Blue & White. If you wire everything the same you should eliminate your problem.

Look here for a detailed resource:

http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic8379.html

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Sep 28, 2005 Posts: 6

I have gone through the house and re-wired all of the jacks so that they are all the same using blue and blue/white only as I have only one line. The phones are wired using one line Cat 5 wire coming into the house and then the phones are wired from one to the next and so on. Nothing very fancy going on here, yet I am still having the same problem as before. The Vonage service acts like I have a phone off the hook when I plug it into my home wiring. The last thing I'm going to check is my alarm box and see what the deal is there. Anyone know what I should be looking for? I have a Brinks system a little over a year old.

Thanks for the help as always.

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Oct 02, 2005 Posts: 2

I have exactly the same problem. It works on the phone lines in the house for about a minute and then goes completely dead.

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Sep 28, 2005 Posts: 6

lescarroll wrote:

I have exactly the same problem. It works on the phone lines in the house for about a minute and then goes completely dead.

Do you have an alarm system hooked up?