Changing wiring to use "second line" rather than "first" line on specific jack

Asked Oct 22, 2007, 10:21 AM — **9 Answers**

Hi, and thanks! I have two phone lines (telephone numbers) coming into the house. I want to change a particular jack from one line to the other (exclusively for a fax). The current jack has a pair of tan wires going to "black (heavier wire and screw)", a pair of blue wires going to "red", a pair of blue striped wires going to "green" and a pair of tan striped wires going to yellow. Also, there are four additional pairs of wires... brown, brown striped, green and green striped... not currently going to anything. To change this jack from one line to the other, do I just disconnect the four pair currently attached and hook-up the unattached pairs? Does it matter to which "screw" or "color" I attach them, as long as I attach them in pairs, i.e. brown to the "black screw/wire", green striped to the "red screw/wire", etc.? In other words, do certain pairs HAVE to go to certain "screws", when attaching the new sets of wires?

Thanks a lot!

ScottGem · Oct 22, 2007, 10:22 AM

Swap the black and yellow with the green and red.

Howard649 · Oct 22, 2007, 10:39 AM

Originally Posted by ScottGem

Swap the black and yellow with the green and red.

Thanks for the incredibly quick rely; just want to be sure I understand (I'm not real handy lol);

The yellow and black are "outside" and the red and green "inside"; do I actually (physically) put the yellow and black inside and the red and green outside, WITH THE SAME smaller wires attached to them, i.e. tan wires going to "black (heavier wire and screw)", a pair of blue wires going to "red", a pair of blue striped wires going to "green" and a pair of tan striped wires going to yellow..

OR

Do I take the wires off the black, for example and put them on the red and the wires off the yellow and put them on the green?

Sorry if the question is stupid!

ScottGem · Oct 22, 2007, 10:58 AM

Your home is not using standard phone wire, otherwise they would be black, yellow, red and green to match the terminals. So you need to go by the terminals. A phone line needs only one pair to function. If two pair are connected it generally creates an RJ-14 (instead of RJ-11) jack. So the yellow and black from the main line go to the yellow and black of the jack. The yellow and black of the second line, go to the red and green of the jack (respectivelly). So if you swap yellow & green and red & black you reverse the primary line of the jack. Now, you only want to swap the incoming wires unless you want to change all the jacks that are daisychained from it.

Howard649 · Oct 22, 2007, 11:52 AM

Again, thank you. I may have explained poorly. I do have four "terminals" (screws); attached to these are, from left to right as I look at the back of the jack, a black, red green and yellow wire, coming out of and attached to the jack itself... part of the jack!

The other wires of which I spoke are coming in through the wall and part of two larger "bundle of wires". These smaller, solid color and striped wires are then attached to the same screw (terminal) that the B, R, G and Y (respectively) wires, or "leads" are attached to.

I swapped the black and red and the green and yellow and I (of course!) managed to change ALL of the lines in the house so that they were all on the second line! I changed them back and everything is OK now, but I still can't seem to change just the one jack to the second line. I'm wondering if I should disconnect the smaller, solid and striped lines that are attached to the B,R,G and Y terminals with the "other" set, or "second" set of striped and solid smaller wires that are also coming in as part of a bundle, but presently are not hooked up to anything?

ScottGem · Oct 22, 2007, 12:23 PM

You need to trace the wires. It sounds like the B,R,G & Y are coming OUT of the jack to the other lines in your house. And the wires coming out of the wallare coming INTO the jack. If you just want to change 1 jack, I would suggest adding another jack. Run a short wire from the main jack to the new one, connecting the green to black and red to yellow. Leavethe other two off and see if that works.

Stratmando · Oct 22, 2007, 05:53 PM

2 Ways, take your 4 conductor, keep in current color group and 4 wires could go to a double wall plate, hook up pair on red and green to red and green of dbl phone jacks,
Take the other pair and connect to red and green of second of dbl jack.
Single line devices use line 1(center 2 pins on jack, line 2 is next outer pair)
A Fax is a single line device(can be more).
You could also plug in one of those adapters that outputs Line 1, Line 2, Line 1+2.
Plug fax into line 2 and it will work also.

KISS · Oct 22, 2007, 06:03 PM

ScotGem:

As the URL provided above states there is the old (QUAD wire, solid colors) and the new (CAT 5) standard for wiring telephone. The current reccomendation is 2 coax and 2 CAT 5 cables at each location. Even the new jacks, typically inserts, don't have the solid colors anymore and the quad wire is too thick to punch down using a 110 punch down tool.

ScottGem · Oct 22, 2007, 07:02 PM

KISS,

I am perfectly aware of the new standards. But, as the link you included shows, new Cat 5 wiring uses punchdown blocks not screw terminals as it sounded like the OP asked about. It would have to be pretty new construction to use Cat 5 wiring in residential housing.

KISS · Oct 22, 2007, 07:35 PM

Clarifying Stratmando's post: The device that outputs line 1, line 2 and line 1+2 has three jacks and 1 plug.

The line 1 jack means a standard phone access line 1, the 2 inner conductors.
The line 2 jack means a standard phone is connected to line #2
The line 1+2 means a 2 line phone can access both lines and a standard phone accesses line #1. It's a copy of the original jack.

Changing wiring to use "second line" rather than "first" line on specific jack

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