Hello!

I've been googling for two hours to figure out how to rewire my bedroom phone jack in the new home I'm renting. The phone in the bedroom doesn't pick up the dial tone from the main line, so I (and the phone company) assume that there was a second line installed in that room previously.

Anyway, I'm supposed to be able to connect red with red and green with green on the inoperative jack (I have four wires in each jack, including those two colors as well as black and yellow), but that's not working. I also went outside to see if I could switch the black/yellow wires to the red/green side, but I couldn't get the AT&T/BellSouth phone box open. (Maybe because it's an apartment complex box?)

I even took apart the jack that IS working in the living room so I could exactly duplicate how the wires are set up. I did do that. However... on the main line jack, there are two bundlings of wires. One bundle goes to the jack, the other is cut and twisted around itself (out of use). But in the bedroom, there are two bundlings of wires in grey wrapping, but FOUR little bundles of wires in a white casing, one for each color (red, yellow, green, and black), with 3-4 same-color wires in each white bundle.

Can I still rewire this myself to get the bedroom phone on the main line, or do I need to really call AT&T and pay the money for a tech? :-(

Thank you.

Before you do anything check your phone bill. They may already be charging you an extra charge for "inside wiring". If you duplicated the wire pattern from the working jack then the disconnect can be at the other end. It may be possible that they were using the good jack to jump from. You need to check that. Also do you have an ohm meter handy? Phone wires are low voltage and you can see if your getting power to the wires.
Here is a PDF file you can look at for reference.

Ref:

http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0oGk5S1IM5LHLIAxv1XNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE0cHVvM3I 5BHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMTAEY29sbwNzazEEdnRpZANINTQzXzE0M Q--/SIG=12eltnrmt/EXP=1271886389/**http%3a//www.tbaytel.net/media/news/TBayTel_InsideWiring.pdf


Here is another link too.

Ref:

http://www.naturalhandyman.com/iip/inftelephone/inftel1.html

I don't know what the second half of your comment means, but work with me. I never added inside wire maintenance, etc. -- just the basics.

I don't have an ohmeter, but I have a brand new compression tester. LOL!

However... I did find that little box with the customer access" side! It was closed with a "snap" and a "screw", and I couldn't unsnap the snap. Well ... I may have with a bit more "oomph," but I didn't want to break the door / risk "breaking INTO" something I shouldn't have access to.

Should I go out and try again?

Also, my wires for the second jacks aren't identical to the first due to the additional wire bundles I mentioned. LIke, the main jack has just TWO thin red/yellow/etc. wires, one for each "grey" bundle. The secondary jacks I'm trying to switch over have, like, FOUR thin red/yellow/etc. wires, bundled by color (like, all the red wires) as well as in the grey bundle elsewhere down the wire (containing all four colors in the grey casing).

I hope that made sense...

Thanks for your help.

Some phone companies allow access to the box outside the home and they even put a phone jack there so you can test your line before it goes inside. Others depending on where you live are off limits. If you looked at the second link you would see how a normal jack is wired. There is a picture of it with the proper colors. Did you check your phone bill yet to see if your already paying for inside wire coverage?

Hi. I did mention that, no, I don't have inside wire maintenance.

I also looked at both links that you sent, and my jack (inside) looks different completely. (Perhaps because this building was built before '78?) However, I've already matched the red/red and green/green, although the bundling of same-color wires is still throwing me off. It doesn't look exactly like anything I've seen in any picture as of yet.

I got into my outside box.. But there is only one set of wires for the whole building, so I assume I'm not supposed to screw with that.

Thanks.

- Harmony

The cut wires in the main jack may go to the bedroom, Do all the jacks in the house have 1 cable(with red, green, yellow and black)?
Red and green is usually line 1 and yellow and black is usually line 2.
Yet you mention red and yellow?
I wouldn't pay for help yet.

Red and green on the jack is what a 1 line phone uses.
If you have dial tone on the yellow and black pair of wires, connect the yellow wire to red on jack and black wire to green on jack.

Hi. No, I had no dial tone at all in the bedroom, and still don't. :(

Yes, all the jacks in the apartment have red/green/yellow/black, but coming from TWO cables. (Meaning, there are four colors -- R/G/Y/B -- in EACH grey bundle.)

Here's how it's set up:

Working jack
-------------

(Grey) Cable 1: This one has red and green hooked up to the red/green screws at the "top" of the jack; yellow and black are hooked to their coordinating screws at the bottom.

(Grey) Cable 2: Not in use. (Colored wires slightly protrude from grey casing, but aren't connected to anything.)

Non-working jack(s)
----------------

The colored wires from the grey bundles are mixed up into the white same-color bundles.

Like, Grey Cable 1 AND Grey Cable 2 BOTH have their own red wire going INTO a white plastic casing. The white casing contains ONLY (three total) red wires. The third red wire is not connected to either grey casing, but comes out of the white casing TO the jack.

Same is true for green wires, where the green wire from each grey cable goes to a white "repository," then ONE of those green wires connects to the jack.

Whew! That seemed confusing. Did I make it make sense to you as well? Wish I had a camera.

- Harmony

If you have dial tone on the yellow and black pair of wires, connect the yellow wire to red on jack and black wire to green on jack.


OH! I understand -- thought you meant something else by "cut" wires. Okay, I'm unscrewing the one existing working/main jack again now to connect the yellow/red and black/green on that main jack.

Sorry for the confusion. Will post again if it works!

It is possible that the "not in use" cable is the jumper to one of the other rooms. That's why your not passing the signal on. Also you can buy the phone wall sockets at radio shack or most electronic stores. So you can have identical ones. It is possible it got reduced to 1 working jack and it never got reconnected.
It shouldn't hurt to connect them. The ones that are on the working jack ( cable 2 - not in use)

Oh -- I finally understand what "jumper" means now. I kept forgetting to ask. :-/

So I tried connecting yellow wire to red screw and black wire to green screw on the main jack. No luck with bedroom line, though main continued to work. (I had TWO wires of different colors -- red & yellow -- on the same -- red -- screw. Was that right.. )

I remember when I first took the bedroom line apart, the wires were crossed and I can't remember how. But the black/yellow were in use. I can't remember where the red/green ones were. So I'm going to look in the other bedroom that I haven't tampered with and arrange things in this bedroom that way again, if I can. Will report back later.

THANKS, guys, for all your suggestions. 'Preciate your patience.

- Harmony

Likely you originally had red to red green to green and so on, since you are usine single line phones, the red and green on the jack is all that is important.
Either hook red and green to the red and green on jack OR hook yellow and black wires to the red and green on jack, not both.
Do you have a volt meter?

Oh, okay -- I'll try one or the other.

No volt meter.

In the bedroom before, it was absolutely not green/green and red/red -- that was why I was puzzled! I'd been googling for hours before that, reading that it was supposed to be that way, just as you said. So I got happy thinking it was going to be an easy fix when I noticed that green/green and red/red were not what was going on with the bedroom jack. However, simply switching them to that had no effect.

Anyway, I'll test one or the other and post again!

You could use a phone as a tester, remove a wall plate, keep wires separated so they don't short. Then with a phone plugged into the wallplate you could follow dial tone, with the red and green pair.
Since your renting, the Owner may know.
You may need to open ALL wall plates and see if something is not made up.

Tons of work last night, but finally got back to this today. Thanks much for helping clear up the obscurity, Stratmando. I couldn't wait to try this.

And... MY JACKS WORK! I just connected all R/G/Y/B to the corresponding colored screws on all jacks in the apartment. Ahhh, sweet dial tone.

Thank you, all. :~)

You're good.