Help with phone wiring

[Will McQueen]

I'm trying to wire my Hi-Phone in between the rest of the phones in my house and the external phone line. I've located the spot where the phone line comes into the house. However, I can't tell where it connects to all of the jacks in the house. I'm posting some pictures that will hopefully help someone give me an idea of which wires are which.

Here is where the lines come into the house.

[Will McQueen]

I can't tell where the outside lines on the left connect to the phone jack distribution on the right.

[ajgriglak]

Will, I think we need an even wider shot. I think it might be those wires that on the very bottom the second picture, but I can't tell to where they are going.

Give us another shot... ;-)

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-=A.J. Griglak

[huggy591]

Ok, typically, red-green is the first pair and that is your phone line. In your case, it looks like someone has crossed the color scheme coming off your telco connecting block (the black connector to the left in the large photo).

The jack in the center should be your main disconnect point. You should be able to pull the little telco cable out of the bottom of that plate, and plug a phone into the jack, and get dialtone from the telco. The plug and it's wire should go to your internal wiring. I would pop that plate off and take a look at how it is connected underneath, but here's my guess:

The yellow-black pair entering that center plate on the left side is your feed from the telco. The other jacketed wire coming out above those is the feed to your house phones. Trace that wire and see where it goes.

Do you have an alarm system? Chances are that jacketed wire goes to a special jack for the alarm that allows it to disconnect and seize control of the phone line to dial out in the case of an alarm being raised. If this is the case, you need to find where that wiring comes back to the central point (probably one of the top jacketed wires that goes to the terminal strip on the right), and insert your jack for the HiPhone between it and the rest of the house phone wiring, AFTER the alarm jack. But I could be wrong and there could be a second phone line for that.

As I said, this is all guess-work. Here are some questions to ask yourself:

- What do the red-green wires coming off the telco jack's yellow-black pair go to?

- What do the other yellow-black pair coming off the telco red-green go to (they go into a cable up top - maybe this is the alarm pair and is bypasses even the telco disconnect)?

Good luck!

- Gordon

"Security is EVERYONE'S business!"

[Will McQueen]

The jack in the middle is for my second line, which I really don't even use.

I do have an alarm, but I can't tell which wires are connected to it.

The red and black wires connected to the telco yellow and black go to a line that I'm not sure where it leads. The other two wires from that cable go to the main red/green "hub" to the right. In other words, there's a cable coming in which the red/green go to the telco yellow/black and the cable yellow/black are connected to red/green "hub".

All the wires connected to the telco red/green are accounted for. One pair goes to the jack in the center of the picture. The other pair goes to another jack a couple of inches off the left of the picture.

I think I might just connect the yellow/black telco wires to the HiPhone. And run the HiPhone back to the terminals the telco yellow/black are connected to currently. Do you see any problem with that? I don't think the alarm is connected ahead of all other house phones currently, so having the HiPhone between it and the telco probably won't be any less safe than the current configuration.

A.J. - I'll post a wider view tomorrow.

Thanks for the help!

[huggy591]

Oh, ok, you DO have two lines and we don't see the other jack. No problem, that clears it up.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> The red and black (YOU MEAN GREEN) wires connected to the telco yellow and black go to a line that I'm not sure where it leads. The other two wires from that cable go to the main red/green "hub" to the right. In other words, there's a cable coming in which the red/green go to the telco yellow/black and the cable yellow/black are connected to red/green "hub".
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'll bet THAT is your alarm wiring. In order for an alarm to seize the line, it must have its jack put in-line before the phones in your house. That way it can disconnect the phones and toggle the line to get a dialtone - that's how they seize the line. So, take the red/green coming from that wire (the curly ones in the picture) and disconnect them from your terminals on the right, connect them to your HiPhone as the telco line, and then connect the HiPhone's internal phone line to your terminals. That should do it AND leave your alarm in ultimate control, which is how it should be.

You might want to double-check that that phone line is your main line, but it should be since it goes to your red-green pairs in your cabling.

- Gordon

"Security is EVERYONE'S business!"

[Will McQueen]

You were right, the wire connected to the telco yellow/black was the alarm. I clipped the curly red/green wires coming from the alarm and ran a wire to the HiPhone and then back. Everything is working great. I appreciate the help.

A.J, turns out we didn't need that wider picture. Although, I think it would have been easier to see what was going on with a wider angle.