[budangmoceros]

Hi. I hope you'll be able to help me.. I am trying to have a phone at the kitchen and both my bedrooms. When I first moved into the apartment, there was only 1 jack working (bedroom 2), I was able to successfully put the kitchen jack working a month ago. Now, I am trying to work on the bedroom 1 jack, I thought I succeeded but when I went and check on the kitchen jack, it's out. I want to put it back as well as keep the bedroom 1 jack working at the same time. I checked the bedroom 2 connection again and it has 2 gray wires attached to the red cable/wire then a white/gray wires attached to the green cable/wire. The question I have is, how to put back the kitchen wiring without losing the bedroom 1 wiring? The red - orange wires and green-white/orange used to work in the kitchen, I think this is the wiring I used at the bedroom 1 jack also... could it be that the wiring stole the kitchen wiring? Please help.. I'm desperate to have a phone inside the bedroom but trying to avoid having to pay the installation/rewiring fees.

[labman]

You should be able to have an unlimited number of working jacks. Having too many phones and modems plugged in at any time can cause problems, but even a half dozen should work.

Many phone cables have 4 or more wires in them, but unless you have more than one line coming in, only the red and green wires are used. Start with the cable where the phone line comes in from outside. Likely it is the one to the bedroom 2 that was the only one that worked. There should be 2 or 3 cables. One comes from the telephone company, and one goes on to the next jack. There may be a third one going on to the third jack, or the third jack may be fed from the second. The cables may be all the same, or different. Each jack should have a cable that matches one at another jack. Most residential phone cable has 4 wires in it, red, green, yellow, and black. More complex systems will use more colors. Today most phones are wired to modular jacks. The box or plate with the jack has 4 screws marked R, G, Y, and B. Where you do not have the standard colored wires, be very careful not to lose track of where the original colors were connected. Maybe first make a list at each box of what is connected, R, red, gray, and gray and so forth for each screw at each box or plate. Start and connect all the red and green wires to the screws marked R and G. If you have an incoming red wire connected to the R screw and 2 gray wires connected to it, make sure the same gray wires are connected to the R screw at the other jacks. Do the same with the green. If your boxes or plates are not marked R, G, Y, and B, buy new ones. I have found Ace hardware has them fairly cheap. I always hated buying things for a rented place, but it may be worth it to solve the problem.

This should get all the jacks working. It could be there is a broken wire somewhere, or even another box or plate with wires disconnected. Try to follow the wires and check them. If things still don't work, post back with details, and maybe I can help figure out the problem.

[Borewyrm]

If you suspect a faulty wire use a multimeter to check for a short or break in the line. I would recommend a inexpensive digital model for basic homeowner tasks. (I am a professional electrician and use a Radio Shack meter on a daily basis.) 1)
Be certain the meter can test for continuity 2) Set it to tone as an actual reading is not needed. 3) Disconnect one end of the phone line (At the wall plate for example) and be certain the 2 leads are not touching. 4) At the other end do the same and touch or clip a meter probe to each wire (at this point you should not hear a tone. If you do the wire is shorted and needs to be repaired or replaced) 5) If the line is clear (no short) twist the two wires together and check the other end with the meter probes (You should now get a steady tone) This indicated that the wire is intact and not broken.

[fredg]

Hi,
If all else fails, you can always do this, which would result in having phone lines running around your hall, into the kitchen, and along the floor, maybe next to the wall. This would NOT be in the walls, but running along the floor.
1. Find the phone jack that works.
2. Go to Radio shack, or another store that sells phone wire "plyers and crimper". Ask the person in the store, he/she will know what you need. Buy the plyers, some phone wire "end connectors" that crimp onto the end of the phone line, and buy about 50 ft (maybe 25 ft) of phone wire, and a double phone wire connector, (or "splitter") that one line goes into, and two lines coming out.
Tell the store person what you want to do, and they should know what you need.
I do wish you the best of luck. Again, the above will work, if all else fails trying to actually fix the phone wiring inside the walls by yourself.

Here is a link:
http://www.dreamhardware.com/product...roduct_id=7619
It shows a picture of one of the things you will need; a phone line splitter, so you can have a phone wire coming from the good phone jack, then split it so you can run phone wiring to any other phone(s) in your apartment.